Damaged (29 page)

Thursday, May 17, 6:00 p.m.

H
er fingers fumbled over the handle of the filing cabinet drawer.

Be calm. You still have time.

She yanked open the drawer. Tabs separated groups of files by the hundreds. She searched frantically for 1429. A glance confirmed the number matched the ID on the leg labeled Mary Littler.

She pulled the forms, stuffing them in her waistband. Running to the elevator, she flipped off the light and jabbed the button.

But what if Anna Keane had seen the light and was waiting for her at the bottom of the elevator?

Fear weakened her legs. Until now, she’d only been afraid of what Anna Keane could do to her career if she caught her. But seeing Mary Littler’s/Vangie Wright’s dismembered leg had cast a whole new light on the funeral director. She didn’t have proof—yet—it was Vangie Wright’s leg, but she was damn sure it was. Vangie Wright had gone from being a missing prostitute to a cadaveric product.

Had Anna Keane killed her?

The thought stopped her heart. When it resumed beating, it skittered like a mouse running across a marble floor.

Stop panicking
.

She took a deep breath and kicked off her shoes. Snatching them from the ground, she stepped away from the elevator, achingly conscious of the vibration her footsteps would make on the ceiling below.

She slipped through the doorway of the mini embalming room and into a big storage area. It was full of boxes and tools. A narrow wooden staircase ran along a side wall.

She crept down the stairs. They ended in a small kitchenette. It looked like a staff room, with a table and chairs, a microwave and a refrigerator. She hurried into the hallway. The lights were dim but they shone like spotlights after being in the dark.

She hugged the wall and began inching her way along the plush, ornately patterned carpet. To her left was the chapel. A soft light glowed within. On her right was a private reception area. In a few moments, she would pass Anna Keane’s office and then she’d be home free.

She crept closer to the funeral director’s office. The light was on. Was she inside?

She paused, listening.

She could hear nothing. The funeral home was silent.

She crouched down and crawled past Anna Keane’s door.

A door banged loudly.

Her pulse jumped in her veins.

Was it the front door or the back?

She took a deep breath and ran to the main door. No sign of Anna Keane or her staff. The banging must have come from the back. She grabbed the doorknob. The door wouldn’t budge.

It’s after five o’clock; it’s locked.

She scrabbled around the knob and found the dead bolt. It slid back smoothly just as her shoes fell from her arms.

Jesus.

She snatched them from the ground and yanked the door open.

Damp air brushed her face. She darted outside, closing the door behind her. Rain fell on her hair.

She slid on her shoes and walked quickly to the sidewalk. A car drove down the street. Then another. Relief swept through her. Anna Keane couldn’t hurt her now. There’d be witnesses.

She veered to the right, crossed over to the shadows of the newly leafing trees and approached her car from the other side of the street. She jumped into it and locked the door.

She was just about to turn on the engine when a silver sedan drove past her. It turned into the funeral home parking lot. She slid down in her seat again.

The sedan parked next to the hearse. A man got out of the car. She peered desperately through her rain-blurred windshield. She couldn’t make out more than his tall, dark form. But she bet it was BioMediSol’s president, Craig Peters. With a sudden shock she realized he was probably overseeing the order she’d placed with them. He disappeared inside.

She began to shake. That was too close a call. When she’d decided to sneak into the funeral home, she had totally forgotten that the fake order she’d placed with BioMediSol would mean that they would be trying to get the order ready—at the funeral home, where BioMediSol’s operations were based.

So much for thinking you were so clever. You almost walked into your own trap.

She peeled away down the street, her body working
into one big shiver by the time she reached her house. She could barely get the door open. Alaska bounded toward her. She buried her face in his fur. He let her hold him until her shivering stopped.

She pulled the BioMediSol forms from her waistband. Mary Littler had died in a car accident, the form said.

She sank down on the floor. Should she call the police? She had a form with a fake name on it.

But was that really Vangie Wright’s leg? Tattoos were a dime a dozen. And even if it was, had Vangie been murdered? Maybe she really had died in a car accident. Heck, maybe her real name was Mary Littler. Prostitutes used street names all the time.

There was only one person who could tell her the truth.

Vangie’s sister.

Friday, May 18, 4:00 p.m.

“R
andall, it’s CreditAngels on line two.” His assistant, Virginia, allowed a hint of puzzlement to creep into her usual efficient tone. CreditAngels was a company that gave credit to people the banks turned away—in exchange for usurious interest rates. They didn’t want a person’s firstborn, Randall thought. Too expensive. He pushed away the nagging irritation that rose whenever he thought of the revised order for custody support his ex-wife’s lawyer had delivered two days ago.

He punched line two. “Randall Barrett.”

“Mr. Barrett, this is Ashley Dickson from Credit Angels.” She spoke with practiced staccato.

“Yes, Ms. Dickson, how can I help you?” He used his smoothest tone. Perhaps the tables had been turned on them and they needed some legal assistance.

“You are the managing partner of Lyons McGrath Barrett, correct?”

Randall didn’t like her tone of voice—as if she was honing in for the kill. He frowned. “Yes. And may I inquire as to why you are calling me?”

“We are calling in a bad debt. We demand repayment of $182,000, which includes $57,000 interest on a principal amount of $125,000.”

He loved how the loan company called in the loan at the very last hour before the weekend started. He pitied the real Barrett they were after. “You must have me mistaken with a different Barrett. I have no loans with your company.”

“But your firm does.”

“I can assure you that our firm does not. We deal with a different banker.” He allowed a hint of condescension to creep into his voice.

“Mr. Barrett.” Ashley Dickson’s voice was discomfiting in its absolute confidence. “We have your signature as managing partner on the loan document authorizing LMB to be a guarantor for the loan to BioMediSol, Inc.”

“I’ve never heard of that company.” But he sure as hell was going to find out what BioMediSol was about. “I most certainly did not sign the loan, Ms. Dickson. I’m afraid you’ve been a victim of fraud.” He could guess what had happened. Not only was CreditAngels not too fussy about to whom they lent money, it appeared they weren’t too particular about getting proper ID, either.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Barrett,” she said. “The co-signee was John Lyons.” Randall’s gut contracted. And suddenly the picture crystalized. John Lyons. Surely he wouldn’t do this just for revenge. He was sinking the whole damn ship. “He’s the one who took the loan. And now he’s in default. We want our money, Mr. Barrett. There will be interest penalties accruing as of tomorrow.”

He had no doubt that a company named CreditAngels would demand its pound of flesh.

“I’ll look into it and get back to you. Please fax me a copy of the lending instrument.”

“I’ll call you first thing Monday morning.”

So John Lyons had faked his signature on a loan document. He doubted the document would ever hold up in court, but the very fact John had resorted to fraud and involved LMB was extremely disturbing. John’d been acting strangely recently. Stressed, uncommunicative, not his usual suave self. He’d even seemed to distance himself from his little protégée, Kate. Randall had been secretly pleased by these developments. He had thought it demonstrated John’s awareness of the new order in LMB.

He’d been wrong. Not only that, he’d been duped. And by John Lyons, the man who envied him his success.

Had John duped them in more ways than one?

Had John had been hiding a conflict of interest with BioMediSol?

He picked up the phone. “Virginia, I need all of John Lyons’ client records for the past two years. ASAP.”

“Right.”

He thought for a moment. “And did Kate Lange ever return my call?”

“No.”

Was she somehow embroiled in this? Was this her way of getting back at him for stealing his notes?

His gut told him she wasn’t the type to be petty. Life had dealt her too many hard knocks.

Then a thought stopped him cold. Maybe John cooked this up with Kate before she joined LMB. Kate would be the perfect recruit: toiling away in a dead-end firm, desperate for success. And then, in a masterstroke, John feigned an interest in Kate whenever he was with Randall—knowing that it would needle him, but never knowing how disturbing Randall found the thought of Kate being intimate with John—in order to distract him from
their true intention: to defraud LMB and exact John’s ultimate revenge.

He had a sudden image of her amber eyes. They dug so sharply into him and didn’t reveal a thing. Whenever he looked into them he had the sensation of staring into a pool of water, of seeing himself reflected in all his flawed nakedness. But never being able to see what was underneath.

She hadn’t returned his phone call.

There’d be hell to pay when he saw her next.

Friday, May 18, 4:00 p.m.

“Someone’s playing games with us.” Anna fought to keep the panic from her voice, but John could hear it.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that a person pretending they were from a phony company called the Surgical Teaching Institute placed an order.”

“Damn.” John stared at his desk in disbelief. What the hell was going on? “Who was it?”

“She said her name was Dr. Tupper. I believed her until the delivery times were changed around. No one met our delivery company. Then I discovered that there is no such thing as the Surgical Teaching Institute. And—” her voice rose “—it gets worse. I think someone stole some of BioMediSol’s files last night.”

“What?” Shock accelerated his heart.

“Not only that, but Ron said Kate Lange had been at his lab, asking questions.”

“You think she did all this?”

“I don’t know who else would.” Anna paused. “I just don’t know why she’s doing it.”

“I do,” John said softly. “I know exactly why. She’s figured it out, Anna.”

“Are you sure? You told me no one would figure it out if we put Craig as president.”

“There was no paper trail between Keane’s Funeral Home and BioMediSol. Nor with me. I didn’t think anyone would figure it out.” Especially Kate. That’s why she’d been the perfect associate for the TransTissue file. He thought she’d be more concerned about getting hired on with LMB than snooping around BioMediSol.

He’d been wrong.

“We’ve got to do something.” Anna’s voice was definitely panicked. “Craig’s been acting bizarrely. Ron thinks he’s got some kind of brain disease. I knew we should have stopped him when we had the chance.”

John closed his eyes. “Anna,” he said heavily, “we never had the chance.”

“But when he first started bringing those dead prostitutes in—”

“He was psychopathic even then. He’s been a psycho all his life. Look at how he got kicked out of the surgical residency program. The only way to stop him would have been to call the police. You know we couldn’t afford to do that.”

“You mean you couldn’t,” she said bitterly. “You’d lost a few too many times at the blackjack table, right, John?”

Her dig hit home. He flushed. “Don’t be ridiculous. If we’d involved the police, they would have begun investigating BioMediSol. They would have found out that some of those body parts had not been donated.”

She exhaled in frustration. “Then what the hell do we do now?”

“I’ll deal with Kate. You handle Craig.”

“Jesus, John, he’s a friggin’ serial killer!”

“Anna, you have to be calm about this.”

“How can I be calm? He’s out of control. We could be next!”

She was right. He needed to be dealt with. “Look, just get him to the upstairs embalming room and inject him. Then stick him in the crematorium.” He leaned back in his chair. “Simple.”

She exhaled deeply. “Okay. But you better be there, too. He’s a maniac.”

“Fine. Tell him to come for 8:00 p.m.”

Friday, May 18, 4:45 p.m.

T
he fog flirted with the Narrows. It billowed up from the outer harbor toward the slim band of water, dulling it. Within minutes it would enshroud the bridge that connected Halifax to its twin city, Dartmouth.

Kate turned on her headlights and took the exit to Windmill Road. It was one of Dartmouth’s working-class areas, lined with small but neat houses and low-rent apartment buildings clad in brick. The neighborhood was inhabited by blue-collar workers, single mothers and retirees whose final years were not tinged with gold. Windmill Road was modest, not destitute. But despite its ordinariness, violent crime was growing at an alarming rate. If there was a murder or assault, chances were good it took place in the north end of Dartmouth.

Vangie Wright’s sister, Claudine, lived in an apartment building perched on a slope that rolled down to the water. The building was called, fittingly enough, Blue Water apartments. What the name lacked in imagination was made up for by the view.

Kate parked her car and headed into the foyer. Checking
the security code she had written down, she punched in the number and waited for Claudine to answer.

It had been a stroke of luck to find Vangie’s sister. After her narrow escape from the funeral home last night, she had called Shonda, worried that she’d be so high she wouldn’t be of any use. But Shonda hadn’t answered.

Kate spent the night in suspense, wondering what the reaction of Craig Peters and Anna Keane had been when they realized someone had placed a fake order with them. The clock had started ticking the minute the delivery man was not met.

She just prayed that Anna Keane would not notice that BioMediSol’s files had been breached.

The clock would tick in double time then.

Kate spent the morning in LMB’s library, pretending it was business as usual. At lunch, her assistant handed her a pink message slip with Randall’s name. He’d called first thing this morning, Liz told her.

Kate sat behind her desk and stared at the phone. Had Randall found out that she’d broken into Keane’s Funeral Home? The only way he could possibly know was if Anna Keane had told him—which meant he was in collusion with John Lyons.

Yet, with their rivalry, it seemed improbable. Although, they could have started out as partners…

She shook her head. She’d found zero evidence to connect him to either BioMediSol or TransTissue. But she didn’t dare call him back. She still didn’t trust him. And he always seemed to figure out what she was hiding.

She called Shonda repeatedly throughout the day, her anxiety growing as Shonda’s cell phone replayed the same message: “The customer you are trying to reach is not available.”

At 4:39 p.m. Shonda answered the phone. She was wary, tight-lipped. But she did tell her that Vangie had a sister named Claudine. The last she’d heard she was living in Dartmouth.

It seemed ironic that after all the risks she had taken to get her hands on BioMediSol’s paper trail, she had found Claudine’s phone number with a quick flip of the white pages.

Friday, May 18, 5:10 p.m.

John Lyons sat in his car. He studied Kate’s house from across the street. Nice neighborhood, but the house needed a bit of work. Whoever bought it would have to put a chunk of money into it.

Every few minutes he spotted Kate’s dog. The white husky would stand against the living room window and stare straight at him. As if he knew John was waiting for his protégée.

Why hadn’t she just accepted the settling of TransTissue’s case gracefully and moved on? She had potential. He bet that she could have had a good career at LMB.

But not anymore.

He glanced at the clock on his dash. It was 5:10 p.m. What was taking her so long? She’d left the office half an hour ago.

If he sat by the curb much longer, people might get suspicious. For once he regretted his luxury vehicle.

His cell phone rang. He jumped. Jesus. He was tense.

It was probably his wife, Lorraine. Wondering if they were still going to the casino tonight.

He needed to act normally. And give himself an alibi. He flipped open the phone. “Hello.”

“Lyons.”

His heart jolted. “Barrett.”

“We need to meet. Now. How soon can you get back to the office?”

His brow broke out into sweat. Damn. He knew from the tone of Barrett’s voice that the game was up. CreditAngels must have contacted Barrett. They’d been threatening to, but he didn’t think they’d do it. He thought the money he’d given them as a good-faith payment would keep them quiet.

He didn’t want Barrett to think he could be ordered around so easily. But he needed to put out this fire. Fast.

Before everything came crashing down.

But what if Kate tried to contact Barrett before John had a chance to deal with her?

He thought quickly. He’d wait for Kate a bit longer. She must be on her way home. Then he’d handle Barrett.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Friday, May 18, 5:10 p.m.

The security door buzzed and Kate let herself into the hallway of Blue Water apartments. She took the small elevator to the second floor. The smell of bacon frying tantalized her nose. She heard a baby crying.

She knocked on 214 and the door opened immediately. A small woman with skin the color of almond biscotti answered. A TV babbled in the background.

“Ms. Wright?” she asked.

“Yes.” Her face had a wary look that Kate was becoming all too familiar with. She reminded Kate of a fawn, her delicate frame poised to flee.

“I’m Kate Lange.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Thank you for agreeing to see—”

“Who’s that, Mama?” A tiny little girl poked her head
around Claudine’s legs. She had rows of little pigtails all over her head. Inquisitive brown eyes stared up at her. Kate wasn’t good at guessing kid’s ages, but she thought she was about six.

“Hi. I’m Kate,” she said to the little girl.

“I’m Tania.”

“Tania, you go watch your brother,” Claudine said. “I’ve got to talk to this lady for a few minutes.” Kate wondered how such a tiny child could be responsible for watching anything.

“Do I have to?” Tania said. “He’s so annoying.”

Claudine gave her a warning look. “Do as I say.”

Tania turned reluctantly from the door, throwing one last look over her shoulder at Kate. Kate gave her a sympathetic smile. She remembered with a pang what it was like babysitting her younger sister.

Claudine held the door open. “Come in.”

She walked into the apartment. It was smallish and cheaply furnished, but clean and bright. Tania scrambled over an old velour couch and whispered something into the ear of a little boy who looked twice her size. A cartoon blared but they both ignored it.

Claudine threw them a stern glance and turned to Kate. “We can talk over here.” She pointed to a table and chairs set up by the galley kitchen. “Coffee?”

Kate smiled. “Yes, please.”

Claudine poured two mugs and brought them on a tray with a small pitcher of milk, a sugar bowl and a plate of sugar cookies. She had obviously set it up in anticipation of Kate’s visit.

“Thank you.” Kate added some milk and sugar to her mug and took a sip.

Claudine sat down close to her. She cupped her mug
between her slender hands. “You said you had some questions about Vangie?” Her voice was low.

“Yes. First of all, did she ever use the name Mary Littler?”

Claudine shook her head. “Not that I know about. She always stuck with Vangie.”

That did it. Mary Littler was a fake name, Kate was sure of it. But just to make sure, she asked, “Did she have a tattoo of a hummingbird on her ankle?”

“Yeah, she got it when she was seventeen. Why do you want to know? Have you seen her?” Her eyes searched Kate’s face anxiously. That question slaughtered any lingering doubts Kate had about Anna Keane’s guilt.

She swallowed. She had been practicing what to say during her drive over, but telling Claudine that her sister’s body had been sold for parts stuck in her throat. “I believe she is dead.”

Claudine looked down into her coffee. “I thought so.” She raised her chin and met Kate’s eyes. “She was pretty sick by the time I heard about it.”

“Sick?” Kate stared at her. “With what?”

Claudine pulled out a letter. “I never heard of it. Kratz-filled Jacob or somethin’. Here, you read it.”

Kate unfolded the letter. The logo of the Nova Scotia Department of Health was at the top.

“They sent the letter just after Vangie went missing.”

“To you?”

“They tried to reach Vangie but she was on the streets by then. I was her next of kin.”

Kate put her coffee down and skimmed the letter:

Kate put the letter down slowly. “Did Vangie know she’d been exposed to CJD?”

Claudine shook her head. “No. But I think she had it. I seen her a few weeks before she went missing and she was acting strange. She’d been strung out for months, so I figured it was the crack, and I got real mad at her. I didn’t even know she’d gone missing till the police called me. One of her friends had filed a missing persons report.” She sipped her coffee. Her eyes were sad. “When I got the letter, I called the health people. They told me some of the symptoms.”

“And she got it from human growth hormones?”

“Uh-huh. Vangie was real little. Kind of like—” She jerked her head in Tania’s direction. “We’re all little in my family, but she was the smallest. The doctors gave her these shots when she was eight. To help her grow.”

But the shots had been infected with CJD. Kate’s mind whirled. If Mary Littler was really Vangie Wright, her infected body had been cut up and distributed by BioMediSol. Who knew if any of her body parts had been implanted into other people. People who had thought they would be healed, not harmed, by the surgery.

“So she’s dead?” Claudine’s doelike eyes probed hers.

“I’m afraid so.”

“I thought she was. But I hoped—” Claudine looked down into her coffee cup. “I hoped maybe she’d gone into rehab somewhere and kicked the crack. She’d done it before.” Tears welled in her eyes. “But somethin’ told me
she was dead.” A tear trailed down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “She was my big sister. My half sister. She sent me money, you know, helped me get a job at the drugstore before she got so strung out.” She looked helplessly around her apartment. “I wouldn’t have any of this if she hadn’t helped me. And then when I tried to help her…” She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. “I really tried to help her. But she wouldn’t listen…she just wanted the crack. She kept hangin’ up on me…”

“I’m sorry,” Kate said softly. “You tried.”

“But it didn’t make any difference. She’s dead, isn’t she?” Claudine looked at her, anger in her eyes. Anger not at Kate, but at herself.

Kate understood it only too well. That was how she’d felt. Still felt.

“You did your best.”

Claudine looked away, out the window at the fog-brushed water. “Maybe.”

“Maybe she didn’t want you to save her,” Kate said softly. Imogen’s angry eyes flashed through her head.

“
I don’t want to leave yet. Stop bossing me around, Kate. I can make my own decisions!”

“Yeah, right. Like snorting up?”

She’d looked away in shame. Then her righteous anger returned. “I like it! It’s not hurting anybody!”

She’d run back to the porch of that house they’d gone to. The one with the party that all the kids wanted to be invited to. Kate had stared after her, fear battling with anger. Her sister had ignored her, was running off into a den of lions. Her sister didn’t want her to protect her anymore.

She’d banged on the door and forced Imogen to come with her, threatening to call the cops if anyone interfered. Knowing that she had sealed her fate socially. She was
furious her sister had put her in this position. She’d never get asked to another party again.

Both of them were simmering with rage when she peeled away from the curb.

“I hate you. I hate you! Do you hear me?” Imogen had shouted. Her face twisted with anger.

Kate had flinched. Never in her life had her sister said those words to her. After all they’d been through with their father, it’d been an unspoken pledge between them to never hurt each other. They had protected each other.

Until that night.

Imogen seemed to realize how deeply she’d wounded her. She retreated into sulky silence.

Then she blurted out: “I need it, Katie. It makes me feel good. It makes me forget. Don’t tell Mom, please. Please.”

Despair had flooded through Kate. She understood now her sister’s secretiveness. This wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the second time, either. Her sister had been withdrawing for months. “You don’t need it, Gennie,” she’d said fiercely. “We have each other. You don’t need it.”

“I do. I want it. Nothing else makes me feel like that.”

Fear chased away her caution. “No! It’s wrong, Gennie. It’ll kill you!”

“No, it won’t,” she’d said. “I’m going to do it whether you like it or not!”

Then the anger came. How could her sister do this to her? She’d made her the bad guy. She’d made her a social pariah. Why couldn’t she see she was playing with fire? “Don’t do it again. I’ll tell Mom—”

Something warm trickled down her sleeve. She looked down, her heart racing. The trembling of her hand had made the coffee slosh over the rim. Two separate streams of liquid ran down her wrist.

She placed the mug on the table and hurriedly wiped her hand. Claudine had gotten up and returned with the coffeepot.

Kate shook her head. She needed to leave before Vangie’s sister asked her for details. Claudine didn’t need to know what had happened to Vangie’s body. It had already been ravaged by drugs and disease. She didn’t need to know it’d been ravaged after her death, too. That the no-man’s-land Vangie had existed in for most of her life had swallowed her up after death, leaving only traces of her.