Caitlyn felt her breath catch at the sound of Gavin’s voice. She’d believed all along that Helen had been murdered, but hearing it from someone else seemed to only further legitimize her theory. And that terrified her.
“What did you find?” Josh asked him.
“Something I believe is related to my mother’s death,” Gavin said. “We need to meet.”
“Of course. Just tell us where.”
He gave them the location of a Walmart a couple miles from his mother’s house. “I’m locking up her place now, and I can be there in about twenty minutes. I’m probably being paranoid, but make sure you’re not followed.”
“Meet us in the parking lot,” Josh said. “I’ll be driving the same car we were in this afternoon.”
“I’ll find you.”
The call went dead.
Caitlyn gripped the edge of the seat as they pulled out of the parking lot of the office supply store, while the knot in her stomach tightened. After the recent encounter with Patrick and being held at knifepoint, on top of the realization that someone had murdered her friends, her heart was refusing to stop pounding and her hands felt clammy.
“I don’t know about you, but something feels off in all of this,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Josh asked.
“Gavin sounded . . . anxious. Distracted.”
“Can you blame him? He was told that his mother committed suicide this week, and now we’ve just managed to convince him she was murdered. That’s enough to make anyone feel unhinged.”
“True.” She hesitated before continuing. “But what if it’s more than that?”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe I’m just borrowing trouble, but if those suits who showed up at his house . . . if they wanted to get to us, he would be their perfect opportunity. All they’d have to do is get him to call us and set up a meeting. They know we’ll come. I just don’t want to walk into a situation we’re not prepared for.”
“Like Patrick. I underestimated him, but I’m not going to let that happen again.” Josh gripped the steering wheel. “I think we need to meet with Gavin, but make sure we don’t let our guard down. Are you okay with that?”
She nodded. “Yeah . . . I agree.”
But she hadn’t missed the concern in Josh’s voice. What had happened with Patrick might have shaken her, but it had clearly shaken Josh as well. In agreeing to help her figure out what was going on, he’d also taken on the role of protector, one she could tell he took extremely seriously.
“That said, I tend to believe Gavin.” Josh made a left turn and headed toward Walmart. “He doesn’t trust those men. He proved that when we were at Helen’s house. He could have told them we were there. Could have given them Helen’s notes, instead of giving them to us.”
“You’re right, I’m probably just being paranoid, the same way Gavin is feeling.”
She stared out the window, still feeling distracted and on edge despite his reassurances. It felt like all the things she’d been certain about in life had suddenly come crashing down around her and had left her questioning everything. People’s loyalties. The truth . . .
Fifteen minutes later, Josh pulled into the parking lot and found an empty spot on the far left side. She glanced out across the lot. Even at this time of night, the place was busy with shoppers and a few loiterers. She watched Josh check out a couple high school kids, then apparently decide they weren’t a threat.
Caitlyn studied their surroundings as well, while trying to shake off her dark thoughts. A mom was heading toward her car with a couple of toddlers and a cart. A minivan pulled into an empty parking space a few spaces down from them. On the surface it seemed like another busy night with a parking lot full of shoppers. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t somehow been followed.
She could sense Josh’s pinpointed awareness of what was going on around them. Jaw tense, fists clenched in his lap as he studied the scene. Coming to him had been the right thing. She was impressed with both his insight and his focus, despite his personal connection to the case.
She glanced at the time on the dash. “He’s late.”
“He’ll be here.”
Josh was right. Thirty seconds later, Gavin’s black pickup pulled in three spots down from them. He got out and headed toward their car—alone—then slipped into the back seat.
Gavin quickly shut the door, then scooted toward the middle, sounding out of breath. “Thanks for meeting me.”
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one with nerves on edge.
“Of course.” She eyed his backpack. “What did you find?”
“I was going through a closet in my mom’s house and found a box hidden in the back.” He went straight to the reason for his visit and pulled a thick file folder out of his backpack. “This was inside, pages of lab reports from over the past year. I’ve skimmed through it, but to be honest, I don’t understand most of it. That’s why I wanted to bring it to you. There are handwritten notes all through it, and that’s what got my attention. Because while I don’t understand most of it, like I said, what I did get out of it is that something was going on at the lab. Something questionable, and from what I can tell, possibly illegal. Whatever it was made my mother start asking questions.”
Caitlyn felt a shiver sweep through her. Something that had got her murdered.
She took the pile of notes from him and skimmed through them. The lab reports themselves were nothing out of the ordinary. They were something they all worked with on a daily basis—detailed notes on trials, results, methods, and conclusions. What stood out was Helen’s handwritten notes in the margins that were punctuated with exclamation and question marks.
“I started highlighting things that stood out,” Gavin said. “You can see the notes in the margins where she calls into question techniques being used in the lab.”
Caitlyn flipped through a few more pages, stopping to read the comments. “It’s going to take me some time to go through them, but from what I’m seeing so far, I would agree. She definitely had concerns about this project.”
Gavin’s fingers gripped the seat back. “Ever since you stopped by, I’ve been plagued with my own questions. I know there are people who commit suicide and leave family and friends behind grieving over how it could have ever happened. But my mother . . . I just can’t believe she’d do that.” He drew in a shaky breath. “But to be honest, what almost terrifies me more is the thought that someone else took her life. Why would anyone want to do that?”
“That’s what we’re going to figure out,” Caitlyn said. “And what you just gave us is going to help find out the truth.”
Gavin glanced out toward the parking lot. “So what do I do if those men come back again? I’ve already lost my mother. I can’t let something happen to my wife and boys as well.”
“Can you leave town for a few days?” Josh asked.
“I can send Anna and the boys back east to her mom’s. My father-in-law’s not doing well. She’d be happy to go and wouldn’t question my sending her there.”
“What about you?” Caitlyn asked.
“I don’t see how I can leave town. I’ve got too much to take care of in connection to my mother’s death, but as long as my family’s safe—”
“And as long as you’re not asking questions,” Josh said. “You need to keep quiet about this, and your wife as well, if she has any idea what’s going on.”
A ripple of guilt shot through Caitlyn. “I spoke to Anna briefly at the funeral. I said some things . . . asked her if she really thought Helen had committed suicide. It was insensitive, I know, but I also know your mother and couldn’t imagine her taking her life. I was just . . . desperate for answers.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Gavin shook his head. “Like I’ve already said, we’re all struggling over my mom’s death and the fact that suicide seemed impossible to believe. I know Anna and I have talked about the very same things, and now it looks like we were right. That’s why I decided to come to you.”
“I really am sorry,” Caitlyn said. “I still can’t believe she’s gone, but I know this has been even harder on your family.”
“What about the police?” Gavin asked. “What’s their involvement in all of this at this point?”
“Our plan is to pull this evidence together, then go talk to my captain,” Josh said.
And hope he listens.
Gavin nodded. “I need to go. I told Anna I was running out to fill up the car, so I can’t be gone that long. Just promise me one thing. Please. Please find out who killed my mother.”
Caitlyn leaned back against the headrest and let out a deep breath as Gavin headed back to his car. It would take time to go through all of Helen’s notes, but what she’d discovered so far was enough to support her theory that she’d discovered something shady, if not illegal, that was going on in the lab. Now they needed to figure out exactly what that was.
“What are you thinking?” Josh asked.
“I think Gavin might be right.”
“Have you figured out her notes?”
“I’m starting to. She seems to have been concerned about a virulent virus.”
“Meaning?”
“Most vaccines we work with utilize viruses to transport genes into the body.” She looked up from the open file. “Most of the time when changes in the genetic makeup are made, the viruses become less virulent, so they’re not an issue.”
“But . . .”
“The odds are small, but there’s always the potential that a virus could become lethal or be harder to immunize against, which is the exact opposite of the result we want. It looks like that could be what happened here.”
Josh leaned forward. “So what would be your normal response to something like that?”
“We would go in a different direction.”
“But in this case, they didn’t.”
She shook her head. “It looks like whoever is behind this decided to continue testing.”
“So how does that discovery end up leading to murder?”
Caitlyn pressed her lips together, trying to formulate her words. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but clearly something had gone horribly wrong in this project. And now someone was trying to cover up the evidence.
“I’m not saying at this point that this is what’s happening, but in a worst-case scenario, it would be possible, for example, to create a vaccine that attacks cells containing a genetic flag for a specific disease.”
“Meaning?”
Caitlyn hesitated. “You would have the building blocks that could—potentially—create a weapon.”
“Wait a minute.” Josh caught her gaze. “So they’re working on a vaccine and in the process, things go wrong, and they discover that they’ve created a . . . a—”
“A virulent strain. It’s one of several possibilities of what could happen.”
“And then someone takes that strain with the intent of weaponizing it?”
“It wouldn’t be an easy process, but in this case, if someone was able to genetically manipulate that strain so the body’s immune system didn’t recognize a hostile virus, the results could be devastating.”
“Okay.” Josh let out a low whistle. “How much would something like this be worth?”
“I’m guessing millions.”
“So if you’re right, we’re talking about a biological weapon?”
She nodded. “It’s possible. I remember reading about a case where researchers in Australia accidently produced a killer virus—a modified mousepox that was related to smallpox. Their virus didn’t affect humans, but it’s the same technology that could be used in biowarfare. Our lab does research for new vaccines. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the process makes the virus weaker, which is what we’re aiming for. But if you have one that actually makes the virus more virulent, and that virus gets into the wrong hands, the results could be devastating.”
“So, what if this really is about biological warfare? What if they created a virus that has the potential of killing thousands?”
Her stomach roiled at the thought. “Then it would be very possible that Olivia and the others were killed for what they found out.”
Silence filled the car as they both sat lost in their thoughts. Mishandling scientific research and unethical conduct wasn’t a new issue in her field, but murder . . . how had someone let it go there?
“We need to know who’s behind this,” Josh said, breaking the silence between them. “That’s still the biggest question. But how would something like that work?”
She let out a sharp breath of air. “They’d have had to manipulate the virus so it evolved to the point it could escape detection in the body. Plus, they would have had to find a buyer, which wouldn’t be easy.”
What did you get involved in, Helen?
Caitlyn started flipping through the pages again. “Let’s assume Olivia starts asking questions. She digs around and discovers something’s off on the project she’s working on.”
“Who does she go to?”
“I’d assume she’d go to Dr. Kaiser first. And if he doesn’t know anything, she’d go higher up. And in the process, someone found out she was asking questions. Wait a minute . . . Here’s something interesting.”
“What’s that?”
“Helen scribbled a meeting with Dr. Abbott.” She checked the date. “This was just a few days before he died.”
“You said you asked his wife if she’d heard about the project?”
“Yes, but she said she hadn’t.” Caitlyn nodded her head. “But the three of them worked together, so it would make sense that he was involved in this as well.”
“And his death?”
A chill ran down her spine as she caught Josh’s gaze. “Just like Olivia’s and Helen’s deaths were staged, I don’t think he died of a heart attack.”