“Perhaps if there was more transparency in the medical field I would agree with you,” Sam stated. “But as it is, pharmaceuticals have become a money-making scheme that preys on the health-compromised. I’ve lost trust in medicine. But nature, well, it will always remain trustworthy because it has nothing to gain.”
She took a deep breath, ready to launch into all the ways nature served mankind better than anything he could create in a lab, but she had already lost Thomas at the mention of transparency. His snores vibrated the room, a guttural sound from within the deepest slumber.
Slipping her hand into his pocket, his wheezing faltered as she pulled the C-shaped keychain out. She held her breath and waited, wondering how many elephants were poached to procure this novelty ivory letter. A moment later, the nasal whistle resumed and Sam carefully rose from the sofa.
A long marble cabinet lined the wall behind his mammoth neat-as-a-pin desk that would have made her mother proud, but a quick open-and-shut glimpse into a dozen drawers proved worthless. As she reached the last cabinet, she checked the time on her watch. She didn’t know how long the kava root would last, as she had never drugged a person before, but she didn’t want to be rummaging through his files when he woke.
Pulling on the last handle, it wouldn’t budge. She leaned over, searching for a keyhole, but all she saw was the letter C imprinted in the marble. As if Thomas Cook needed a reminder of his infamous last name.
Then Sam saw it. She held up the keychain. The C in the marble was the exact shape and size of the ivory keychain. Pressing the ivory into the marble, it became a button that pushed open a drawer that bumped into Sam’s hip. Inside were several items, but one looked particularly incriminating. Sam picked it up, read the single word on the front, and knew this would change everything.
Thunder rumbled overhead. The snoring suddenly stopped.
Sam gasped as Thomas stirred and slowly regained consciousness.
Tucking the item behind her back, she slid the drawer closed, hustled to Thomas’s side, and dropped the keys into the nook of the cushion. His eyes fluttered open just in time to watch her collect her handbag, where she had hidden the evidence in the macrame cavity.
“I’m sorry I dozed off,” he apologized, still half-asleep. “It must have been the wine.”
“Yes, the wine,” Sam agreed.
“It’s not too late to head to the bedroom,” he murmured, gaze weakly trailing up and down her body.
“As enticing as that sounds, I’m going to head out. I want to beat the storm home.” It wasn’t all a lie. “And I’m sorry, Thomas.”
“Sorry for what?” he asked.
“I’m just sorry… for everything.” She had no idea how true that would prove to be.
Then Sam Stanton left Thomas Cook feeling something he had never experienced before: utterly powerless and insanely infatuated.
Chapter 18
“This is gold!” Mr. Getty exclaimed after Sam dropped a leather book on his desk with the word Accounting in gilded print on the front.
Late into the previous night, with Fido’s muzzle resting on her shoulder, Sam had sprawled out across her sofa reading line after line of handwritten words and corresponding numbers throughout the ledger.
Within an hour Sam had compared the names to ones listed in the phonebook, then broken down the list into doctor last names and drug identifiers. The numbers seemed to apply a sum payment based on the drug dosage. A little common sense and math led Sam to her final conclusion:
Thomas Cook had been paying off doctors, recording in his own handwriting the payouts prescribers received for each script. The bigger the dosage, the higher the payment. It was all the proof she needed and then some to show that Cook Pharmaceuticals was corrupt, paying doctors to prescribe everything from the Pill to Valium to pain medicine. And specifically listed among the prescriptions: Nosartin.
It was the very same heart medicine that had killed her father. Even more, the very same doctor who had prescribed her father the drug was inked on an entry for February 17, 1965—the very same date printed on the prescription bottle that Sam clutched in her hand as she read Thomas’s entry with a quick breath. Same, same, same.
In short, her father’s doctor got paid to kill him.
This meant war.
Morning couldn’t come fast enough. Sam could barely wait to get to the office to show Mr. Getty her proof when she rushed out of her house an hour earlier than usual, oblivious to the newest For Sale sign that popped up on her street.
After rushing to the office to deliver the good news, the wait to see Mr. Getty was excruciating.
Sam had spent the morning enduring Mel’s publicly unrestrained snide comments about her brownnosing the boss. During the afternoon she watched helplessly as the secretaries iced her out at lunch in the break room. Even the sole female research aid Mr. Getty had promoted from the mailroom cancelled their usual midday water cooler chat. So Sam slurped down her homemade roasted purple potato soup alone at her desk while the office staff giggled from the break room, throwing her a resentful glance over their shoulders when they passed by.
Sam lost hope as her deadline drew near. He’d pushed their meeting from 9:30 to 11:15, then postponed again until 2:45. It was now ten minutes to five, closing time, which gave Sam mere minutes to hand over her evidence and plead her case to keep her advice column.
Lately it felt like the whole world stood against her, pitying her for being a doormat, then hating her when she stood up for herself. She was considered either weird or fanatical, and neither of those attributes were attractive in a friend, colleague, or even, Sam hated to admit, a daughter.
When Mr. Getty’s voice boomed across the bullpen calling her to his office, she nearly tripped over her own feet as she ran. With nine minutes left before the office closed for the night, she rushed through a summarized explanation of what she had found, then handed him the ledger.
“Absolute gold!” Mr. Getty repeated.
