Chapter
Nine

The next morning, Kate took a quick shower, made herself presentable, and set out to find Landon. She couldn’t believe he had insisted on staying there all night to protect her, but she would be forever grateful. She had thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, but knowing that Landon was there watching over her lightened her burden, and she had actually slept through the night.

When she peeked out her front window, she didn’t see Landon, but another man leaned up against a large black SUV parked in front of her house.

She took a quick step back from the window and tried to steady her ragged breathing. Her pulse began to pound, and her hands shook. Where was Landon? Why was this strange man outside her house? Had he been sent by MPC? But then again, if he were there to hurt her, would he be waiting around in broad daylight?

She pulled back the curtain to look again. He was probably in his mid- to late thirties, tall, with short blond hair and a muscular build.

He made eye contact with her and smiled. There was no sinister intent in his bright blue eyes—just the opposite. He started walking toward her front door.

“Ma’am,” he said, from the other side of the door. “I’m Cooper Knight, a friend of Landon’s.”

Relief flooded through her. So this was one of Landon’s college buddies who owned the security business. She disarmed her alarm system and unlocked the door to let him inside.

He walked in and offered his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Landon contacted me last night and updated me on your situation.”

“Where is he?”

“He’ll be back soon, ma’am. I insisted that I take the second shift so he could get some rest.”

“You can call me Kate, and thank you for your help. I didn’t even want him to stay all night, and now I have both of you to thank.”

“Your safety is top priority.”

As she processed his words, a chill shot through her. “Would you like some coffee?”

“That would be great, ma’am—I mean, Kate.” He smiled.

“Come on in the kitchen.” As she prepared the coffee, she looked over her shoulder. “I understand that you and Landon were college roommates?”

“That’s right, along with my business partner, Noah Ramirez.”

“Since you’re here, I’d love to hear more about your company. Landon has been pretty insistent that we retain you for the MPC case.”

He nodded. “I’m happy to tell you more about what K&R does, but first you should know that I think Landon’s right. I’m not saying this because I’m trying to get business. Even if you don’t choose our security firm, I seriously suggest you hire someone, given the threat assessment. Landon has only been able to tell me a limited amount, but I’d be happy to sign a nondisclosure agreement to get more of the download from you, with absolutely no obligation on your part to hire us.”

“I already owe you for last night,” she said.

“No, that was me doing a friend a favor. It had nothing to do with being on the clock.”

“You two must be very close.”

She saw him hesitate for a brief moment, but it was long enough to realize she’d hit a nerve.

“When you go through the college experience together, you build a bond. But since Landon left the military, he’s been focused on his PI business, and I’ve been working with Noah on our company. We haven’t had much interaction lately, but when he reached out to me about your situation, I was there in a heartbeat.”

There was much more to this story than Cooper was saying, but it wasn’t her right to pry—and definitely not with Cooper. If she wanted more answers, she should go to Landon directly. “Please tell me about your business. That will help me decide if we need to move forward and sign an NDA.”

“We started primarily as a private security firm working in the tech space. If a company has security concerns with their systems, they call us. We can build from the ground up or work with whatever the company has in place and upgrade them to state of the art. Our clients range from small start-ups and family businesses to huge corporations. We also do computer forensics—the type of stuff you’d hire an expert for if you were trying to find or recover data from a system or trace what happened to certain data.”

“That’s very impressive.”

“We’ve also branched out into personal security services. The type of work I did here last night. Mainly our clients are celebrities or other VIPs.”

She laughed. “Well, that wouldn’t be me.”

“From where I sit, it seems you fit the VIP mold pretty well.”

She shook her head. “No way. I’m just a lawyer trying to get justice for my clients.”

“And you have no chance of succeeding if you aren’t alive and well to do so.”

Another chill shot down her back at his words. She’d never thought about it that way before. She ran her hand through her hair and let his words sink in. “I guess you’re right.”

She took two big mugs out of the cabinet and poured coffee for them both. “Need cream and sugar?”

“No, I take mine black.”

She gave him a steaming mug of coffee before fixing her own. She dumped some sugar in her cup. “Sounds like I should get you that NDA to sign. I can print one off from my home office if you give me a second.”

“Sure.”

She took her coffee with her to the office down the hall. A knock on the door almost made her spill coffee on the hallway floor.

“Let me check that out,” Cooper said. Immediately he was at her front door. He looked through the peephole, and his shoulders visibly relaxed. “It’s Landon.”

Cooper opened the door, and Landon entered, walking directly toward her. “How’re you doing?”

“Pretty good, thanks to both of you. I was just about to print Cooper an NDA so I could get him up to speed on the case and the investigation you’re running.”

“Seems like perfect timing, then.” Landon looked at Cooper. “Coop, can you give us a second?”

“Sure. I’ll be in the kitchen, getting back to my coffee.” Cooper walked down the hallway toward the kitchen.

She turned her attention to Landon. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I wanted to explain why Cooper was here this morning. I figured you might not be too happy about that.”

“Why? You guys are putting yourselves on the line to help me. I appreciate it, and I’m thankful for what you’re doing. All of it.”

He took a step closer to her. “I didn’t want you to think I was abandoning you.”

“I would never think that. You’ve been here each step of the way. Cooper told me that he offered to take over so you could get a few hours of sleep. I understand that. He seems completely capable, and you’d already told me about him and his background as a police officer.”

He gently placed his hand on her shoulder. “Yes, that’s what I wanted to make sure you understood. I would’ve never left you in just anyone’s hands. I trust Cooper with my life.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Cooper told me that since you left the military, he hasn’t seen you very much.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No. I got the feeling he didn’t want me to pry.”

“I told you that I had a rough time during my last tour in Iraq. When I came back stateside, it was easier just to separate myself from everyone I cared about.”

“I’m sorry to bring up such a painful topic.” She regretted saying anything at all.

He squeezed her shoulder before dropping his hand. “It’s fine. But for now, I’d like to focus on our current situation.”

“Understood. Let me get that NDA, and then we can fully brief Cooper. Did you actually get any rest?”

“I did. Sleeping is a skill I developed as a Ranger. You might only have thirty minutes, and you have to be able to nap on command. I appreciate Cooper stepping in.”

“If everything goes as I expect it will, it looks like I’ll be retaining his company to help us out.”

Nicole knew by the tone of the email she’d received from the first-year associate that the newbie thought she’d found some hot documents. Nicole had to take it all in stride, because this was about the fiftieth time she’d been alerted by a junior associate about supposedly hot documents—and not a single one of them rose to that level.

But she appreciated that these young lawyers were taking it so seriously. She’d much rather have a million false alarms than the alternative—missing key documents and then being blindsided in depositions. Heads would roll if that happened, and that would include her own.

She gathered up her patience and grabbed an espresso from the break room before heading back to her office to meet Julia. One of the perks of a large firm like Peters & Gomez was the amenities. They had a gourmet coffee bar and an endless supply of snacks to fuel lawyers who often worked around the clock.

When Nicole got back to her office, Julia stood eagerly waiting for her, notebook, laptop, and a stack of documents in hand.

“Come on in,” she told the junior associate.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Nicole, but I really thought you needed to see these docs. I printed out copies for you.”

“Thanks, Julia. Let me take a look.” She took the pages from Julia and started to scan them. Initially nothing too troubling, but as she flipped to the next page, the email exchange became more interesting. “Did you bring the list of key players with you? Do you know who all of these people are?”

“Yes, and yes.”

Julia provided the list, which was essentially a cast of characters of everyone in the litigation. It grew daily as the team learned more about the people involved and all the MPC personnel and their specific roles.

“Tell me what you know,” Nicole said.

“This is an exchange between two senior research scientists—Pierce Worthington and Ellie Proctor. Ellie tells Pierce that she thinks the repeat tests for Celix will confirm that the drug has harmful side effects.”

Ellie Proctor was the woman who had been killed in the parking garage. Nicole flipped from one document to the next and read them, first quickly skimming, and then rereading in a more careful way.

Finally, she looked up at Julia. “Good work, Julia. Thanks for bringing these to my attention. I’m assuming you flagged them in the system for my personal review too?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Keep an eye out for anything else like this.”

“Will do.” Julia got up and left her office.

Nicole needed a few moments to gather her thoughts. The email exchange between the two scientists was troublesome. She read the worst of the documents again. The other side would use this conversation to demonstrate that two top scientists at MPC at least had some concern about the possibility of dangerous side effects to using Celix.

She checked the date on the exchange and saw it was before the release of Celix. This document could be used to show prior knowledge, and that in turn would boost the plaintiffs’ failure-to-warn claim.

She marked up the documents with highlights and notes. How they approached this issue ultimately wasn’t her call. Those decisions were way above her pay grade. She picked up the phone and dialed Ethan’s number.

Landon took Cooper along with him to scope out Ellie’s apartment in the popular Virginia-Highland neighborhood. He hadn’t invited Kate because he thought she might not be comfortable with some of his plans. It was better to keep her out of the loop until he had something to tell her. Her firm was paying him to investigate, and that was exactly what he was doing.

“What’s your angle here?” Cooper asked.

They stepped out of Landon’s Wrangler and started walking toward the apartment complex office.

“I’m going to try to sweet-talk the apartment manager into letting us into Ellie’s apartment.”

“And you think that will work?”

“It depends on who the apartment manager is.” A bead of sweat rolled down his back as he walked toward the office. He was eager to get inside to the air conditioning. “You might actually be the one to get us in there.”

Cooper raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure that?”

“Because if it’s a woman, you’ll have a better chance than I will.”

Cooper laughed loudly. “Whatever you say, bro.”

It was fun giving his old college buddy a hard time. Landon realized he had missed hanging out with Cooper. It was sad that it had taken circumstances like these to bring them back together. “I was thinking we could say that either we’re friends of Ellie’s or friends of the family. Something like that?”

Cooper stopped walking and turned toward him. “What about the honest answer? That we’re investigators and want to find out what happened to her?”

“That might spook them. They may call the cops.” That was the last thing Landon needed to explain to Kate.

“I could bring up the fact that I’m a former cop,” Cooper said.

“That actually might be the best strategy.” Why hadn’t he thought of that?

Twenty minutes later, Kim, the forty-something office manager, was opening Ellie’s door for them. When Cooper had told her that he was former Atlanta PD, Kim was instantly put at ease.

“I hope you guys find something that will help. Ellie was a nice woman and a good tenant. Kept to herself and didn’t cause me any problems. I’m having some trouble getting in touch with her family, though, and if I don’t hear from anyone by the first of the month, I’m going to have to clear out the place myself so it can be relisted.”

“Thank you, Kim,” Cooper said with a wide smile. “We really appreciate it.”

“Stop by on your way out so I can lock up again.”

“No problem.” This had worked out even better than Landon expected. Kim trusted them implicitly because of Cooper’s law-enforcement credentials.

Kim shut the door on her way out, and Landon looked at Cooper. “Time to get to work.”

Landon walked into the kitchen. “A pile of unpaid bills are stacked up here.” He flipped through them. “She was having financial trouble. No doubt about that.”

“A lot of people have financial trouble,” Cooper said. “That doesn’t mean she was lying.”

They went through the one-bedroom apartment in a methodical manner, room by room, leaving no inch of the modest apartment untouched.

“No laptop that I can find,” Cooper called out.

“Yeah, nothing for me either.”

Landon started to examine Ellie’s small bathroom. He opened her medicine cabinet. It looked like she was running a pharmacy. Bottle upon bottle of pills. The entire cabinet was completely full.

He pulled out his phone and took pictures of all the drug labels. Kate had said that Ellie seemed like she could have been on something when they met. Had the stress of the job done this to her, or was it totally unconnected?

Landon finished up in the bathroom and started on Ellie’s bedroom. He opened her nightstand drawer and found a notebook. He flipped it open and started reading. The notes were scribbled in awful handwriting and used a lot of shorthand.

His eyes scanned each page, hoping he’d find something. There were a ton of notes and what looked like some chemical equations, which wasn’t surprising for a scientist.

From what he could tell, the first part of the notebook was all about Celix. When he was about halfway through, as he flipped to the next page, he saw that one phrase was circled and starred on each side: Look at Acreda.

He kept reading, but the rest of the notebook appeared only to talk about Celix. No other mentions of Acreda.

“Hey, Cooper, come in here,” he yelled.

A moment later, Cooper walked into the bedroom. “You find something?”

“Any idea what the word Acreda means? The spelling is A-C-R-E-D-A.”

“No. Never heard of it.” Cooper pulled out his phone and started typing. Then he let out a low whistle.

“What is it?”

Cooper looked up at him. “Acreda is a drug manufactured by none other than MPC.”