WAR: Intrusion (26 page)

“We’re not the same, Helen. I commit violence against those who have made the decision to take illegal or immoral action. Who pose a lethal danger to others. Your mother targeted innocent people.”

She sighed. “Yes, I understand the difference.” She ran her fingertip around the rim of her plate, fighting back the sense of choking betrayal she’d felt at the time.

“Despite their refusal to fund the work she cared most about, your mother continued to work at the pharmaceutical company, aye?”

“Yes. That’s why she appeared so tired and worn down. She’d leave her official job and drive to the lab of what she called the cancer evangelists, often working there until the early hours of the morning, before coming home to grab a few hours’ sleep. Because I never saw her, I alternated between anger that she couldn’t be bothered with me, and fear that I’d done something to drive her away.”

She took a deep breath. “Anyway,” she said hurriedly, before the sympathy on Lachlan’s face could bring out her tears, “not only did I study at home with a tutor, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the house because of the physical danger from aggressive journalists and from angry protestors. I’d always been active—the more risky the activity, the more I liked it—and being confined to the house drove me crazy. Since I could no longer participate in my outside activities, I became obsessed with following the media coverage. I scoured every newspaper for tidbits about my mother, hoping to find proof that she hadn’t deliberately given a deadly drug to unsuspecting people. I listened to every broadcast, whether it was a news report or some talking head spouting off on our family dynamics as if he or she had a clue. Every piece of information added to a clearer picture of her guilt. Still, it wasn’t until the bulk of the story came out during her trial, and the trial of her co-conspirators, that I began to accept her guilt.”

“Your father let you attend the trial?”

“Yes. I insisted and I think, like me, he hoped that Mother would say something on the stand to prove that she hadn’t realized the danger until it was too late.” Helen shoved her plate away from her. “But that’s not the way it happened. When it was over, everyone knew that my mother had knowingly given the drug to individuals even after that particular version had already resulted in deaths. She and her fellow scientists had gathered data on how the people died in order to tweak the next version of the drug. But they never managed to make it safe.” The shock of hearing the names of her mother’s victims read aloud at the trial still haunted her.

“Years later, when I was in medical school, I gained access to my mother’s medical journals. Everything was there. How, when she’d asked for more funding, her financial partners had told her they might have to turn to illegal means and she didn’t protest. That, when the recruiters started running out of willing test subjects, she’d told them to lie about the dangers, even kidnap people, because success depended on a steady flow of subjects. How, as the body count rose, she became more and more obsessed with discovering what was wrong with her formula.” Helen briefly closed her eyes. “For a while, after I’d read the journals, I dreamed that she stood over me with a syringe in her hand, telling me that if I died it would all be in the name of science.”

“Did she ever show remorse?”

“No. Like a gambling addict, she was certain the breakthrough she needed was just around the corner. On the future day when she revealed to the world that she’d found a cure for cancer, everyone would praise her and acknowledge that all the deaths during her trials had been justified. Even when I visited her in prison, she continued to insist that she’d done it so that girls like me would never experience the pain of losing their mothers to cancer.” Her lips twisted. “She never realized that her work took her away from me as surely as if she’d died.” And that betrayal was a deep, persistent ache.

Lachlan put his hand over hers on the table in a show of comfort. “Everyone involved was convicted,” he said. “Your mother received a life sentence.”

“Yes. A week after my first and only visit with my mother in prison, she killed herself. The media called it poetic justice, because she’d swallowed a lethal concoction of chemicals she’d gathered while on work detail.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I still haven’t been able to forgive her. How could she have killed hundreds of people in the hope of sparing future generations emotional pain, then put me through one of the most wrenching emotional ordeals imaginable?” Helen bit her lip and glanced down, but the small pain didn’t stop the tears from welling. “Even now it hurts to know that she cared more about those anonymous girls than she did about me. If she’d loved me, she never would have killed herself.” She swiped at her eyes.

“Ah, lass.” He squeezed her fingers.

She stared down in surprise. When had he picked up her hands? What was it about him that made his touch so familiar, so comforting, that she barely even noticed it?

She cleared her throat, but left her hands in the protective cradle of his gentle grip. “After my mother’s death, my father resigned from his position as an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital. I didn’t know it at the time, but the house had been heavily mortgaged to pay for Mother’s legal defense. He left the house in the hands of the lawyers, then accepted a new job. Six weeks after my thirteenth birthday, he dragged me kicking and screaming to West Africa. He’d accepted a position heading a charity-run medical clinic in a remote section of the jungle.”

“So. You were following in your father’s footsteps by working at the clinic.”

“Not deliberately, but yes, that’s right.” She tipped her head at him. “To say that I was unhappy with our new living conditions, where we had to boil and filter our drinking water, and both electricity and running water were sporadic, would be a gross understatement. The tantrums I threw were quite loud and vitriolic. In fact, I’m surprised the villagers didn’t ask us to leave.” She smiled faintly.

“I accused my father of not loving me. I insisted that if he loved me he’d send me back to America, although he could stay in Africa for all my teenage self cared. I also raged against my mother, blaming her selfish suicide for triggering such an extreme reaction in my father.”

Lachlan squeezed her hands again.

“Unfortunately, there was no where for me to run. I didn’t speak the local language or understand the local culture. I was terrified of the jungle and sick half the time with intestinal ailments. In short, I was more physically and emotionally miserable than my thirteen-year-old self could bear.”

“And yet here you are, an adult choosing to live in such conditions.”

She gave a rueful smile. “I know. It took me a long while to adjust, but I eventually made friends with the villagers near my father’s clinic. As I witnessed the improvements in the lives of the villagers, I understood why he’d gone into medicine. I decided that I, too, wanted to help people when I grew up. I started acting as his assistant in the afternoons once school let out for the day.”

“
YOU
ATTENDED A local school?” Lachlan asked. “Not an American school for children of diplomats and other expats?”

“Yeah. And let me tell you, the first few months at school were miserable. Remember, I’d just escaped a world where reporters and protestors followed me, judged me, and harassed me. Suddenly I’m living in the deep jungle of Africa where a majority of the population had never met a white person before. I hated being stared at and whispered about. Hated the giggles and the little ones who’d run up to touch my skin.” Helen’s lips tightened and he wondered if she was thinking about little Sisi and the other children who’d died.

“But eventually my attempts to learn the local language and culture, plus my dedication to my studies earned me the respect of my classmates. I became friends with a few girls my age. Looking back, I can say that moving to Africa was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was a headstrong, spoiled girl, well on her way to becoming insufferably arrogant. You should have seen some of the temper tantrums I threw once we were living in Africa.”

Lachlan chuckled. “I can picture you. All elbows and knees and wild auburn hair, lashing out because you were scared. After all, your entire world had just been rearranged. Twice.” He squeezed her fingers again, only this time, he needed the comfort from their touch. “I understand better than you’d think, Helen. We moved frequently when I was a child, so I was always the new boy.” The one with the bruises that no adult wanted to acknowledge as signs of abuse. “I hated moving. Hated being forced to make new friends, not knowing how long I’d have them before we’d leave.” Only after his father’s death had Lachlan learned that they’d moved each time his father had killed a patient.

Helen gave him a smile. “That’s rough. At least we weren’t constantly moving. That would have been worse, I think. Because once my father and I were settled in Africa, we stayed in that one place.” She shifted in her seat. “Although I didn’t have my mother’s love growing up, I had a strong relationship with my father and all the material goods my heart desired. In Africa our basic needs were barely met, yet my father’s steadfast love and the generosity of the locals as they eventually accepted us and drew us into their social circle turned me into a more thoughtful, caring person.”

“You were lucky to have your father’s support.” His mother had always looked the other way when it came to his father’s beatings. Part of Lachlan’s fear after his father’s death had been that he’d be sent back to live with his mother, knowing that she hated him for taking away his father. But she’d denounced Lachlan as soon as she’d discovered what he’d done. Soon after, she’d been convicted of being an accessory to his father’s murders, so Lachlan had been spared having to live with her again.

Helen shot him a questioning glance. Sod it all, he must have let some of his thoughts show on his face. He met her eyes calmly, acting as if his insides weren’t churning with his own difficult memories. She frowned, but let it go.

“I knew when I left for college in the United States that I wanted to return and practice medicine in West Africa,” Helen continued. “A few months into my first semester, someone brought up my mother. I was stunned, having thought that chapter of my life was behind me.” She gave a bitter laugh. “If only. From that moment on, it became clear that if I was to succeed in my career, I had to behave above reproach. Because, like the girl who flung the accusations at me that first semester in hopes of winning back the boy I was dating, people would forever try to bring me down by tainting me with my mother’s crimes.” She shrugged. “I suppose if I had chosen a different field to go into, such as being a librarian or a data technician, the accusations would have held no power. But I refused to abandon my dreams of making a difference in West Africa just because my mother had been a murderer.”

“You’ve done good work,” Lachlan said. “Despite the constant opposition.”

A faint blush of embarrassment colored her cheeks and she tried pulling her hands away. But he enjoyed holding her too much to let her go. Plus, he wanted her to understand that his opinion of her truly had changed. “I admire your courage in sticking to your beliefs.”

“Even when they conflict with yours?”

“Aye, even then.” He didn’t have to agree with her in order to respect her commitment to her beliefs.

Their eyes held for a moment and something tightened in Lachlan’s chest. Then Helen glanced at the clock, breaking the odd connection.

“Oops,” she said. “We’d better get a move on. Gloria doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Lachlan raised her hands to his lips, placing a kiss on the backs before he let her go. “Thank you for sharing your story, Helen.”

She flushed again and pushed away from the table. When she reached for the dishes, he waved her off. “Go on and get ready. I have this.”

He made quick work of washing the dishes, and forty-five minutes later found himself standing with his back against the wall as he listened through the thin door to the meeting taking place between Helen, her immediate boss Gloria, and Mrs. N’Dorah, the woman who’d founded Layla’s Foundation.

“The fundraiser would have promoted the reputation of Layla’s Foundation and brought in enough money to fund several other projects,” Gloria whinged. “You owe it to us to participate in whatever marketing events we decide on. That includes speaking to the press. You won’t, of course, be paid until losses are recouped.”

Lachlan had already developed a dislike of Gloria after overhearing the conversation up at the clinic when she’d wanted to send reporters to speak to Helen in order to drum up financial interest. Now, after ten minutes of listening to Gloria harp about how the loss of the clinic wasn’t her fault and how Helen would need to make amends for the damage, his opinion of her had sunk even farther.

“Ms. Sanchez,” Mrs. N’Dorah snapped. “That is quite enough. Yes, you were hired because of your marketing expertise and your conscientiousness regarding staying within a budget, but your words display a lack of compassion that is contrary to what this foundation stands for.”

Lachlan smiled at the wall across from him. On the other hand, he truly liked the woman who’d started Layla’s Foundation.

“If you cannot speak civilly to Dr. Kirk, who nearly lost her life and who multiple witnesses have claimed is responsible for saving many lives, then you should excuse yourself from this meeting. Dr. Kirk remains a valued employee, complete with salary.”

“But—”

The receptionist screamed, the sound muffled by the door at the end of the hallway. But the sound of weapons fire came through just fine.

Cursing, Lachlan flung open the door to Mrs. N’Dorah’s office. He met Helen’s tense, yet resigned eyes. He gave her a wry twist of his lips and a nod to acknowledge that once again, they were under attack. “Get under the desk. Stay here until I come for you.”

Shutting the door, he raced down the corridor. The attackers kicked open the door at the end of the hall. Two men. One behind the other. Both in civilian, native clothing. Both armed with AK-47s. The man who’d kicked down the door had his weapon pointed at the ceiling. The other man held his by his side.