Cut to the Chase Read online

  “Time out. Back it up for those of us who have no idea what’s going on.” Jill waived a hand as she spoke.

  Samantha didn’t give Sara time to answer. She jumped right in to answer for her. “Sara’s prostheses have been ready to go for a long time. But it turns out, she can’t produce enough of them on her own to make it worthwhile. She’s got a far-greater list of veterans wanting one than she can handle. So we’ve been searching for a company to buy the technology. She would give them an overly-generous deal and, in exchange, she wanted them to give a certain percentage of the product away free, and another percentage away at a large discount.”

  “And no one will do that?” Jill asked, looking to Sara.

  “No.” Sara polished off the coffee cake she hadn’t needed but couldn’t resist. She’d lost the lean muscled build she’d had over in Iraq. She wasn’t overweight, but she was softer now.

  “But now broody boy says he will,” Samantha said with a grin.

  Jennie laughed. “Sorry, Sara. The name is stuck.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Okay, but seriously,” Jill said. “What’s your objection to Warrick Staunton’s company doing this?”

  Three pairs of eyes stared back at her. Well, four, if you counted baby Joey, who was taking a break from his nursing and now seemed to watch her almost as intently as the other women.

  Sara opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn’t know how to articulate her objection. She tried anyway. “I guess I just feel like this guy’s not doing it for the right reasons. I mean, his company just needs the publicity. I wanted someone to do it because they cared about veterans, not because he needs a gimp for a poster child.”

  “Sara!” Jill said.

  Sara shrugged. “Sorry, but, it’s true. He’s just using me.”

  The group was quiet for a minute, but Samantha spoke up. “It sounds like you’ll be saving his employees’ jobs. He’ll also be hiring new people, so that’s good, too.”

  Sara nodded. “You’re right.” She felt a little like a petulant child who’d been corrected. “He did say he had enough money to keep his employees on for six months. Jack thinks if we can change the company’s image, that will be enough to save them. There are some medications they have patents on that doctors won’t ever stop prescribing, so they have somewhat of a cushion, regardless of how the public views them. It’s the things doctors don’t need to prescribe that are the issue.”

  Samantha leaned in and spoke quietly, so only the group could hear. “I overheard Jack and Chad talking this morning. Jack said Warrick sold his home to keep the employees on. He’s moving into a townhouse.”

  “Wow.” Jennie’s brows went up. “That’s gotta mean something. Maybe he’s not just a cold-hearted corporate dick-head, after all.”

  Jill laughed. “Let’s hope not. Broody boy is a lot easier to say than cold-hearted dick-head corporate ass guy.”

  Chapter 4

  Warrick reviewed the numbers again. Jack was right. They could make this work. When it came down to it, the prescription side of things wasn’t suffering all that much. The over-the-counter medications were another story. It didn’t matter in the mind of consumers that his company hadn’t actually been the one to test the drug on homeless people. All that mattered was that they’d been linked to the story and people remembered the name Simms with homeless people being killed. It was enough. Stock prices were down nearly thirty percent, and the free fall didn’t seem set to end anytime soon.

  He looked out the window at the park across the street from his office and recognized Sara Blackwell immediately. Her bulky coat didn’t cover her no-nonsense walk. She seemed to always have a purpose, direction. She walked as if she had a place to be and a job to do, and he found himself liking that about her. She might not like him—that much had been clear when they’d met yesterday, although he had no idea why. He liked her. She didn’t seem fragile or needy. She’d spoken her mind with Jack. That said a lot about her character.

  As he watched, she approached one of the few homeless people currently taking up residence in the park. Connecticut was on the verge of eradicating chronic homelessness in the state, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still transients filling the spots on the benches in some of the parks. Sara produced a small bag, gave it to him, and said a few words to the man, before continuing to walk. The man’s eyes followed her before he opened the bag and pulled something out. They were too far away for Warrick to see what it was, or much about either of them, but Sara kept walking like it was nothing. Simply part of her day to care for others.

  “Mr. Staunton, I’ve got the papers for your signature from Mr. Carmichael’s firm.” Charlotte placed a cup of coffee and the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal on his desk as she spoke.

  Carmichael Engineering would handle transforming one of the old burned out labs on their other property into a manufacturing facility for the prosthetic hands they’d be producing. Jack had already talked to them before bringing the idea to Warrick so all that was left was for Warrick to sign off on the plans for the space. Jack was paying a premium to have the facility finished in record time, and in the meantime, Warrick and his team would start on the press releases and PR effort.

  His assistant slipped the few papers he’d stacked in his outbox into her arms and looked expectantly at him. “And Detective Harmon is here to see you.”

  Warrick nodded. “Send him in.” He didn’t have time to meet with anyone right now, but Jarrod Harmon wasn’t just anyone.

  The detective walked in moments after Charlotte left the room. Warrick stood and shook his hand, then waved for the detective to take a seat across from him. Many people might think it odd that he and Detective Harmon had become good friends. The man’s investigation had derailed his company to the point that he may very well lose it all. It wasn’t Harmon’s fault and, in fact, the man had seen through the setup Tyvek had tried to build. He’d exposed the true man behind the horrific crime committed for, it seemed, no other purpose than to frame Warrick.

  Not to mention Harmon had saved one of Warrick’s oldest friends, Carrie Hastings, and the two were now dating.

  “How’s Carrie doing?” Warrick asked. He hadn’t talked to her in a few weeks. Truth be told, it was hard to look her in the eye, knowing his failures had been at the heart of all of this. Months ago, Warrick had had regrets. Now, he didn’t even know how to describe the depths of what he felt. William Tyvek might be the man behind the deaths of an untold number of homeless people, the very people Carrie had dedicated her life to helping, but when it came down to it, Warrick was the one who’d put it all into motion.

  It was then that Warrick noticed how drawn and tired Jarrod’s face was. When Tyvek took Carrie, he’d trapped her in a burning building, intending it to look like Warrick had killed her. Jarrod had saved her in time, but the fire had been started with chemicals. Between the smoke damage and the chemical inhalation, she’d suffered serious injury.

  “She’s developed an infection in her lungs. They knew it was a possibility, but we’d honestly hoped she was past the risk at this point.”

  Warrick didn’t try to stop the curse that crossed his lips. “What are they doing about it?”

  “Steroids, antibiotics. Monitoring it.” Jarrod rubbed at the back of his neck and Warrick knew the stress had to be getting to him.

  “Anything on Tyvek?”

  Jarrod shook his head. “That’s why I’m here. We’ve still got nothing. The only way that makes sense is if someone is helping him. Or, a lot of someones, maybe.”

  “Yeah. I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. He’s got a lot of friends, a lot of favors to call in. People might come out in public and say what he did was horrible, but behind closed doors…”

  Jarrod looked as sickened by the idea as Warrick felt. “Yeah. If you had to guess who he might have reached out to for help, who can get him out of the country or hide him here, who would your best guess be?”

  �
�I’m afraid that list is going to be longer than you and I would like. Tyvek has an endless number of friends or even just business partners who owe him a lot. And most of them have the deep pockets and resources to help them disappear.”

  Tyvek’s own assets had been frozen as soon as they figured out he was behind the drug testing, so it would be hard for him to have the assets to hide himself easily. He could absolutely be getting help from somebody else, though. Or, it was possible he had assets the government hadn’t located. His plot had been planned. It was highly likely he’d set aside resources for getting out when the time came.

  “I was afraid of that.” Jarrod rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s a ghost. He walked out of the fire and vanished into thin air.”

  “Are you absolutely sure he did walk out of that fire?” Warrick asked the question that had been needling at the back of his mind.

  “Without a doubt. He started several isolated fires in your lab. In each case, the damage to the rooms was contained by the fire department fairly quickly.” Jarrod wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. The property was, after all, his. Well, not his. It belonged to Simms Pharmaceutical. But, he walked through the buildings afterward with his insurance adjusters, once the scene had been cleared. “The fire department found no evidence of a body. In some cases, if a fire burns hot and fast enough, evidence would be hard to detect. Even then, there are ways for us to find human remains. Here, the fire didn’t burn hot or fast enough. But even so, once we realized he was missing, I had a human remains detection dog taken through the building. Nothing.”

  “I guess I just don’t want to believe somebody could hide him after what he did.”

  “You and me both.” Jarrod stood. “What do you know about Edward Ball?”

  “You think he was involved?” Warrick hated to think that, but he’d discovered recently, not much could surprise him anymore. Meredith and Edward Ball were an unlikely couple, but they seemed to be very much in love. Meredith had dated his Uncle Jonathan a very long time ago, but they’d split up and she’d married Edward shortly after. They’d started Branson Medical together.

  “We questioned him before we discovered Tyvek was behind the testing. He seemed innocent, but I’ve been back to talk to him since Tyvek disappeared and something strikes me as off.”

  Warrick blew out a breath and thought back on all he knew about Edward Ball. “I don’t know. I know he and Jonathan aren’t entirely fond of each other, given Meredith Ball’s past with Jonathan. They aren’t open enemies or anything, though. Other than that, our contact has all been at business events and things. Up until now, our companies haven’t sold the same things. They’re in medical devices. We’re in pharmaceuticals. We’ll be expanding that shortly, but that’s a new development.”

  “During our investigation, we heard rumors that Branson medical was thinking of entering the pharmaceuticals business.” Jarrod left the statement out there.

  “I’d heard that a while back, but nothing’s come of it. I think that was Meredith pushing for it. She wants to grow the business. As far as I know, Edward doesn’t have as much interest in it. Although, to be honest, from what I know, he’d do just about anything for her.”

  Jarrod’s brows went up and Warrick realized what he’d said. He shook his head. “I’m sure there are limits to what he’d do. I didn’t mean he’d be involved in this.”

  “Anyone else Tyvek is close to?”

  Warrick sighed. “There are some families we all spent a lot of time with at the Cape growing up. The Cabreras and the Danvers still have houses out there. Tyvek spent a lot of time with Mike Caverly and his wife Dot. They live in Hamden and their daughter was friends with Vicki growing up.” He thought for a minute more. “Hell, my mom was as close to him as anyone.” Warrick frowned. He’d like to be able to say his mom would never help Tyvek out, but his family was so damned screwed up. He wouldn’t put it past her.

  “Do you really think your mother would help him?” Jarrod asked.

  Warrick just looked at him and gave a shrug of his shoulders. “I’d like to think no one would.”

  Jarrod nodded. “All right. If you think of anyone else we should look into, let me know?”

  Warrick nodded. “You got it.” He wanted Tyvek off the street. Carrie and he had been good friends since they were young. He hated to think Tyvek had almost killed her, and the thought that he might go after her again had been hanging over him. He was sure it must be keeping Jarrod up at nights.

  Jarrod stood to leave, but turned back as he reached the door. “Hey, I saw Jack Sutton and he told me about the prosthetics project. You should talk to Jax Cutter about that. See if he has ideas. And maybe talk to Carrie. She said a lot of space at the shelter now isn’t being used. Maybe she can help set you up with a way to distribute these. Maybe a monthly clinic?”

  Warrick nodded, but his gut tightened. Could he really go to the very place where all this had started and ask them for help?

  “It’s okay,” Tyvek said to himself, not concerned if anyone overheard him, as he watched her walk away.

  It was funny. People used to look at him. They saw him the minute they walked into the room. People said he commanded attention. Respect. At one time, it had been important to him.

  Nowadays, people looked right through him. He’d worked hard to make it that way. He’d had to choose whether to run or stay and take down Warrick. He’d chosen to stay, but it hadn’t been easy to hide. It had meant twisting more arms, more leverage. But it was worth it if it meant his Vicki was coming back to him.

  It was okay now. He’d found her. She was back and she was okay. She was hiding, just like him, but she’d hadn’t run from him this time. She was older now, the grown-up Vicki, and not exactly the same, but she’d come home to him.

  Chapter 5

  The solution had been simple. Sara had started coming in later and working later. Of course, she still had to see Warrick during the workday, but she saw less of him. He was an early bird. Honestly, that was her preferred work time also. But she found she focused better if she just avoided him. So she came in at eleven and worked until eight o’clock. She’d always had a lot of autonomy shifting between different worksites for Jack Sutton. It was one of the things she liked about the job.

  When she got in at eleven, most of the staff left for lunch soon after and she had a good hour or two to focus on her own. If she had any questions for Warrick, she met with him briefly after lunch, then went back down to her office on the lower level. It meant they saw each other once a day at most.

  It also gave her a solid two hours of peace and quiet in the evening when nobody else was around. Sara liked quiet. She’d always been that way, always able to work better on her own without people around to pester her. In fact, in the military, it had been a huge struggle to get used to working as a team, and she still preferred to work on her own if given the choice.

  She stretched her neck from side to side trying to work the kinks out, and glanced at the clock. She hadn’t realized she’d worked quite that late. She was usually pretty good about leaving by eight or eight-thirty at the latest. Today though, she made a lot of progress on one of the reports Warrick had asked her to put together. She’d begun to realize that he knew what he was doing. He was analyzing her product left to right, inside and out, in ways she hadn’t even thought about. And he’d actually managed to shave time and money off of production. When she’d seen he’d done it without diminishing the quality, she’d been impressed.

  She turned back to her computer. If she stayed another half an hour she could get this finished up, drop it upstairs for Warrick and still be home by midnight. And then she probably wouldn’t need to see him tomorrow.

  Yes, avoiding him was stupid, but Samantha had put ideas into her head that she was doing everything she could not to think about. It wasn’t working, but she was trying. Avoidance seemed like the best policy right now.

  Twenty minutes later, Sara stepped out of
the elevator and walked down the hall toward Warrick’s office.

  “Come on, let’s just get you to the couch. I don’t think I could get you to my car myself, so you have to sleep it off here for a while.”

  Sara stopped in the doorway, unsure of what to do. Maybe it wasn’t too late to walk away. She knew who the man was. She'd seen his picture plenty of times in the paper over the last few months, but she had yet to meet Jonathan Simms. He was no longer working with the company. After the scandal had hit the papers, and his involvement had come out, he had resigned pretty quickly. Simms Pharmaceutical was a family company, but he had betrayed that family when he’d shown William Tyvek the formula to a drug that ultimately allowed Tyvek to frame Warrick Staunton.

  From the looks of things, Staunton and Simms were still talking. Well, not so much talking. Simms was currently struggling to get an extremely inebriated Staunton over to the couch.

  Sara took one step backward, thinking to walk away without being seen, then thought better of it when she saw Simms nearly go down under the weight of the younger man. Jonathan Simms was tall, but he was a lot thinner than Warrick. And he was much older. In fact, he looked older than the pictures she’d seen of him in the news only months before.

  “I’ve got him,” Sara said as she moved forward and slipped herself under Warrick’s other arm.

  Warrick turned to her, eyes dazed. “Did you know? When you got in that car, Vicki, did you know about her?”

  Simms grunted under the weight of Warrick even though Sara was now taking a great deal of it on herself. “Ignore him. He only drinks hard alcohol once a year, but when he does, he hits it hard. Help me get him over here.”

  Together they wrestled Warrick over to the couch where he slumped down, but continued to look at her. He didn’t say anything more as Simms took off his shoes and slid him over so he laid with his head on one arm of the couch. Simms busied himself lifting Warrick’s legs onto the other side, arranging him as best you could arrange a man his size on the couch meant to seat two.