Chapter
Eighteen

Today was the day. Kate would be face-to-face with a man she was convinced was up to no good. The deposition of Royce Hamilton was scheduled to start at nine o’clock at Ethan’s office, and she arrived in plenty of time to get set up. She’d chosen to wear one of her favorite gray pantsuits with a lavender blouse.

Landon was accompanying her, but she still felt like she was headed into the lion’s den. She’d prepared and prayed about this deposition, so now was the time to make it happen.

Her team still hadn’t found any documents showing that Acreda had harmful side effects, but just because she didn’t have documents exactly on point didn’t mean she couldn’t ask Royce questions. She wasn’t under any delusion that he would tell the truth, but hopefully if she was persistent enough, she’d be able to catch him in a lie.

Landon seemed to understand that she wasn’t in a chatty mood this morning. He gave her space while at the same time making sure she didn’t have to worry about her safety. She’d told him that he would need to wait in the firm’s lobby, and he seemed fine with that.

She was set up in a conference room with her stack of documents and her deposition outline. The court reporter and videographer were also there and ready to go. In cases like this, she always videotaped the depositions so that if she ever needed to play it in front of a jury, they would be able to see the demeanor of the witness. It was much more effective than merely reading the transcript.

She looked up as Ethan entered the room.

“Mr. Hamilton is running a couple minutes late,” he said. “His driver is stuck in traffic coming down I-85. You know how it is for the morning commute. Sorry for the delay.”

The games were already starting, but she refused to let Ethan think this would bother her. “That’s fine. Thanks for letting me know.” She turned her attention back to her outline, not giving Ethan another glance.

She wouldn’t let this minor delay throw her off her game. She took the extra time to make some edits to her outline and organize her documents. She’d taken countless depositions in her career. Her outline just provided a roadmap, but the best lawyers listened to the answers the witness provided and adjusted their questions accordingly. Deposing a man like Royce was probably going to be like pulling teeth.

The time flew by, and before she knew it, the conference room door was opening, and Ethan walked in accompanied by Royce Hamilton. She’d seen pictures of him, but this was her first face-to-face interaction. He was a little taller than Ethan and had salt-and-pepper hair that was smoothly styled. His navy suit was immaculately tailored and paired with a striped tie.

She stood and walked over to him, providing her hand. Much to her surprise, he actually smiled and shook her hand warmly.

“Ms. Sullivan, nice to meet you.”

So that was his angle. Try to be the charmer. “Thank you,” she said. It would be a lie to say it was nice to meet him, so she didn’t bother.

“Well, if everyone is ready, we can get down to business,” Ethan said.

“Sure.” She walked back around to her side of the table.

Royce took his spot at the head of the table. The videographer helped him connect his microphone to his suit lapel while she made final preparations.

She had a style of taking depositions, and she didn’t plan on deviating from it for this witness. She wasn’t a naturally aggressive lawyer, and it didn’t suit her anyway. Her strength came from understanding how it all fit together and knowing when to go in for the kill. That might not happen until hours from now, and she knew she would need patience. Lord, this is an important step today. Please give me the knowledge and patience to make this deposition successful so this man can be held accountable for what MPC has done to all of these innocent people.

“Mr. Hamilton, my name is Kate Sullivan, and I’m lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation against Mason Pharmaceutical Corporation in the Northern District of Georgia. I assume that your counsel has prepared you for today, but I always like to start out with some ground rules.”

“Of course,” he said.

“As you know, this deposition is being videotaped, and we also have a court reporter in the room recording all of your answers. Because of that, the court reporter will need you to answer each question verbally so she can take down your answer. If you just nod or shake your head, she won’t be able to record your answers. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Great. If you need a break at any time, all you have to do is ask. All I ask of you is that if there is a pending question, you answer my question first before we take the break.”

“That’s fine,” he said. His light blue eyes focused on hers.

This was going to be a battle to the last minute. That much she knew.

Methodically, she went through her outline, point by point. It wasn’t until midafternoon that she was ready to home in on some of the most sensitive topics.

“Mr. Hamilton, you had a scientist who was employed by MPC named Ellie Proctor, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened to Ms. Proctor?”

“She was tragically murdered in our parking garage.” His eyes misted up.

She couldn’t believe this guy was about to shed fake tears. The thing was that if she didn’t know better, he seemed truthful. “I’m sorry about the loss of Ms. Proctor, but I want to dig a little deeper. She was one of the chief scientists working on Celix, correct?”

“Yes.”

She continued with a leading question. “And isn’t it also true that you had concerns that Ms. Proctor might talk about her work with Celix with those outside of MPC?”

“Objection to form. Calls for speculation,” Ethan said.

“You can answer,” she said to Royce. Objections in depositions were purely for the record. They didn’t stop the witness from being able to answer.

“I worry that all my employees might discuss their work outside of the company, Ms. Sullivan. Given the sensitive nature of our business and the vast competition in our market, that’s something every pharmaceutical CEO deals with.”

“Yes, but did you have any specific concern about Ms. Proctor talking about her work with Celix outside the company?”

“No, I didn’t,” he answered with a straight face.

He might just be the best actor she’d ever seen.

“So you don’t have any reason to believe that Ms. Proctor actually spoke to anyone outside of MPC about Celix?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What about Acreda? Did she talk to anyone outside MPC about Acreda?”

There, the smallest flinch. He quickly made his expression neutral again. “No. And Ms. Sullivan, I’m sorry, but could we take a restroom break?”

“Of course.”

She’d won this round. Royce left the room with Ethan in tow, and she exhaled. She was making progress. If only she could hear the conversation happening right now between Royce and Ethan.

“You’ve got this, Royce,” Ethan said. “You’ve been stellar so far. I know you might be getting tired, but don’t let Kate mess with your head. She doesn’t have anything on you. She’s just fishing.”

“How do you know that?” Royce hissed.

Ethan was thankful his client at least had a good game face inside the deposition room, because right now his face reddened with each word out of his mouth. “Royce, you were a star in there. All you have to do is keep it going for a couple more hours. If she really had something, she’d be more direct about it. She won’t pull punches. You need to start acting like the world-class CEO that you are.” He figured appealing to Royce’s ego was the best strategy.

“You’re right. I need to get my head on straight.” Royce smoothed his jacket. “Where was she trying to go with those questions about Ellie talking to someone outside the company?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she suspects that Ellie spoke to someone outside of MPC about her work. I haven’t seen anything in the documents that would indicate she did. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

Royce’s jaw tightened. “No. That’s what makes me nervous. What does she know?”

“Don’t worry about it. There’s absolutely nothing there. She’s just throwing out wild theories to see if anything will stick. This is good practice for the trial, because it will be even worse there. You’ll have an audience—the most important one being the jury.”

Royce took a couple slow breaths. “I know I’ve been hard on you, Ethan, but you’re coming through for me. I appreciate that. This woman just has a way of getting under my skin.”

“You’ve got this. Now, let’s get back in there, because I don’t want her to think she has you frazzled. You go in there and do your thing, just like I know you can.”

Royce nodded, and they walked back to the conference room.

“We’re ready to go,” Ethan said.

“Great.” Kate looked at him, and he knew she was trying to determine how the break had gone.

Royce put his microphone back on, and they were ready to start again.

“Mr. Hamilton, I’d like to talk to you a bit more about another drug your company manufacturers called Acreda.”

“Very well,” Royce said.

Ethan’s stomach was clenched in knots. He hoped the big game Royce talked would hold up under Kate’s scrutiny. She didn’t hit witnesses hard, but sometimes the softer approach was even more deadly, because they never saw her coming.

“What medical condition is Acreda used to treat?” she asked.

“Acreda treats many different types of growth and tumors. It has a wide-ranging efficacy.”

“And is it available now?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. It should be on the market within the next few months, if all the final regulatory approvals go as planned.”

“And you’re well versed in the allegations in this lawsuit against MPC, correct?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That MPC’s migraine medication Celix caused brain tumors that resulted in death or injury of the plaintiffs?”

“Yes.”

Ethan watched as Kate skillfully led his witness in the type of questions that made for a very damaging cross-examination. She was going to be a force to be reckoned with at the trial. He figured the jury would really buy in to her approach.

“Were you personally involved in any discussion about possible dangerous side effects of Acreda?”

“No, because there are no dangerous side effects of Acreda. We have substantial testing on this.”

“Are you certain about that?”

“Yes, Ms. Sullivan, I think I know the results of the testing of one of my top drugs.”

“Is it possible that your scientists could have found a harmful side effect and you wouldn’t know about it?”

“No,” Royce responded. “I’m intimately involved with the details of all of MPC’s products.”

Ethan winced. He wished Royce hadn’t taken that bait. Because now if Kate ever did find evidence that showed Acreda’s harmful side effects, then it would lead back to Royce and implicate him. He could see the Acreda lawsuits starting to form before his eyes.

“So you would consider yourself a hands-on CEO?”

“Absolutely.”

“And why is that?”

Royce’s eyes lit up. “Because I take great pride in my company, and I need to know that it is functioning properly.”

“Do you also have an employee by the name of Pierce Worthington?”

“We did, but he resigned a few weeks ago.”

“Do you know why?”

“From what I understand, he said he was ready to move on to something different. As long as he doesn’t go to one of our competitors, then I’m fine with it. Of course, I hated to lose a good scientist, but I’d hate even more to have a messy legal battle on our hands if he tried to jump ship to our competitors.”

“Do you know where Mr. Worthington is now?”

“No, I do not.”

“You have no idea where we’d be able to locate Mr. Worthington? No forwarding address or anything?”

“I’m sure human resources has his home address.”

“Mr. Hamilton, you have thousands of employees, correct?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Then how is it that a CEO of a large corporation like MPC has such intimate knowledge of the details of one of its scientists’ departure from the company?”

Royce raised an eyebrow. “Our scientists are the cornerstone of our company. Without them, we have nothing. So, yes, I do make it my business to know what my top-level scientists are doing, especially if they are leaving the company. Pierce isn’t a low-level employee. He’s at the highest level of scientists we employ.”

“And so was Ellie Proctor?”

“Yes, she was.”

“You have stringent noncompete provisions with your employees, don’t you?”

“For those employees who have access to highly confidential and proprietary information like Pierce did, most definitely. It’s industry standard. You’ll find it throughout Big Pharma.”

Kate leaned forward. “So let me just make sure the record is clear here. It’s your testimony that both of your top scientists who worked on developing Celix are no longer available to testify? One is dead and the other is at an unknown location?”

“Objection to form—argumentative, and calls for speculation,” Ethan said. He needed to preserve the record. And he wanted to break up Kate’s rhythm. He didn’t like this entire last line of questioning.

“You still need to answer, Mr. Hamilton,” she said.

“I don’t agree with your characterization or insinuations. But it is true that Ellie, bless her soul, is no longer with us. And as far as Pierce goes, you’ll need to look into that yourself, since he’s no longer employed by MPC.”

Ethan did his best to keep his cool, but this deposition had shown him one very important thing. Kate was on to something, and he had no idea what it was.