All of my love to Dragonmaster65 who betas for me and puts up with all of my misuse of commas and run along sentences.
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Chapter 9
"Is your car running okay?"
Joe was riding with Vanessa to Ophelia pharmaceuticals, and he frowned and leaned over from the passenger seat, trying to peer past her hands and see the gauges.
"Why?" she asked, instantly panicked. "Do you hear a funny noise? Do you smell antifreeze or burning or something?"
"No, it's just that we're barely moving."
She frowned over at him. "It's going as fast as I always go," Vanessa said flatly.
He raised his eyebrows. "You mean you're driving like this on purpose?"
"What's that supposed to mean? I'm doing almost the speed limit, you know."
Joe sat back in his seat and shook his head. Then, as though he was trying to drive her ire higher, he commented, "Huh. You drive like a little old lady."
"How do you think they get to be little old ladies?"
"Cute. Well, I'm gonna be a little old man by the time we get anywhere."
She shot him a sly, sideways glance. "So you're saying that you're a little man?"
"Oh, no!" He raised his hand and wagged a finger at her as she cackled at him. "You did not even go there."
Once they had established that Erin was not an office romance but instead a whistleblower, it was important to find out what she was going to blow the whistle on. Frank and Joe had decided to sneak into the company and look around. Vanessa had insisted that she knew the way around the office and could get them into the server rooms to look for files on clinical trials Erin had worked on. In the end Frank stayed back at the office so Joe and Vanessa could keep a lower profile.
It seemed that Joe was intent on shifting the topic away from their banter now that he was on the losing side. "I still think that you shouldn't have come. They haven't stopped looking for you," Joe said honestly.
"I know they are. But this is personal now. I knew Erin a little bit. She was friendly and naive. I am doing this for her, for Obler, and myself," Vanessa replied. She gripped the steering wheel tightly. There were many variables in their current situation: they could get caught, not find the evidence they set out to find, or any other of a thousand other worries. Her heart was racing, but she was glad that Joe was by her side.
"Just so you know, we are breaking and entering."
"Fun! I have never done anything illegal in my life." She chuckled.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Hi Frank."
"Hey Con. Need a favour from you," Frank said on the phone.
"I am going to regret it, am I not?"Frank could almost see Con shaking his head.
"No you won't. There's going to be a break in at Ophelia pharmaceutical tonight. I need you to make sure that the police don't respond," Frank offered.
"A break in? That is a serious offence. I can't do that." Con's voice was a bit stressed.
"At least delay the response. Please, we just need a little information. We are very close to cracking the case," Frank pled. "It's bigger than just Vanessa Bender. I swear."
Static crackled over the phone line as Con considered Frank's request. It was a risk to even ask in the first place. But Frank trusted Con. And he hoped that after all this time that the detective trusted them as well. "Okay, I will see what I can do. No promises," Con finally grunted.
"Thanks Con. You're the best." Frank grinned.
Frank and Callie stayed back at the office to find out everything they could on all the products Ophelia had rolled out in the last four years. They wanted to see anything they could find on the drug Erin was talking about.
"All these drugs are FDA approved Frank. The ones which don't have approval yet have been doing very well in clinical trials. And those trials are only through top hospitals - Yale, Harvard, and the like. Nothing seems to be below board, at least appearance-wise," Callie said. She was going through the Ophelia websites and researching any drugs that were so much as mentioned, even the ones in pre-trial stages, just to be thorough.
"Erin definitely stumbled upon something. Say, didn't you tell me that they weren't able to get a drug FDA approved two years ago. You guys shelved your article but you still had it in archives, yeah?" Frank asked remembering his conversation with Callie the day before.
Callie nodded, her eyes brightening. "I bet it was the same drug, Bryonia." She pulled up the old report from the archives before turning to him. She confirmed, "It was known as Lysinum back then, but yes it too was for migraines."
"Sounds like a possible lead. Better than these dead ends for now," Frank said with a nod. He pulled open a new tab to start another round of searches for Lysinum.
After a while, Frank rubbed his eyes; he had been staring at his laptop way too long. He turned to look at Callie. She was poring over her own laptop, her tongue tracing her lips - a habit when she was deep in concentration. The lead was good, he felt it in his bones. They were just too tired to put the pieces together right now.
He walked over to her and gave her his hand. "Come on, let's take a short break before we go blind," Frank murmured.
Callie smiled and said, "Yeah, I am beginning to get cross eyed." She took his hand and they walked over to the couch. Frank gathered her in his arms as they sat down.
"I am sorry about earlier. You really did a great job planting that bug, but I can't bring myself to let you be in a position where you might get hurt," he said softly into her hair. She stiffened in his grip.
"Can we not talk about it please? It never ends well." Callie pushed away from him and stood up. "I still think I should keep the dinner date," she said indignantly.
This too was a familiar conversation between them. Callie always wanted to help out the brothers with their cases and Frank's reluctance to put her in harm's way always escalated into a fight between them.
"Don't be angry, Callie. Us talking doesn't need to end badly." Frank slipped his arms around her waist and rocked her gently side to side. She still had a sour pout to her lips. "I would feel better if you sit this one out, especially since I won't be with you. I will even sing for you," he said lightly.
"I can take care of myself. You don't have to protect me during dinner in a public place," Callie retorted.
"It's in public, but these are⦠are dangerous people," Frank argued weakly. He wasn't getting to her and he knew it. Clearing his throat, Frank tried again. "I know that you can handle dinner and that you'd keep yourself safe. But these people somehow made a young woman die from a brain aneurysm. Maybe it was a lie and cover up or maybe it was poison! This is a drug company we're talking about. But I know I'd never forgive myself if something like that happened to you.
"Just humor me babe, this one time," Frank pled. Callie tipped her head but didn't say yes. "When I see your face... There is not a thing that I would change... Cause you're amazing... just the way you are," Frank croaked her favourite song until a smile crept up the sides of her rosebud lips.
"Alright, but just this once." She returned to sit with him on the couch cuddled close to him. When her head tipped back on his chest, he knew that his worries had gotten through to her.
She surprised him by asking, "What do you think about Joe and Vanessa?"
"What about them?" Frank had sensed a growing friendship between his brother and Vanessa but had chosen to ignore it for the moment. Joe deserved to have some privacy.
"I'm getting this vibe between them," Callie said mischievously.
Frank tipped his head to eye her. She had a look to her that said she knew more than she was letting on. "So they're becoming friends?" he asked.
"I am thinking, maybe more than friends," Callie was excited now.
"Best friends?" Frank feigned ignorance.
"Getting warmer - you wanna try again?" Callie pestered.
"I got it! Mega best friends," Frank offered.
"That's it. We can't be seen together again. We will have to keep our relationship under wraps; people think I am dating a genius," Callie specified.
Frank tightened his grip around her waist. "Is that how it's going to be? I am your dirty little secret?"
"I am sorry if I am coming on too strong, but the truth has set me free," Callie joked.
Frank guffawed at that. Then he returned to her original question. "I have seen the closeness brewing between them, but Joe is still fragile. Let him take his time, there is no rush."
"Always looking out for him," Callie said with a laugh.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Vanessa and Joe stealthily made their way across the grounds towards the main lobby. A solitary guard was patrolling it.
"Hold this." Joe handed his flashlight to Vanessa and used a paperclip on an unnoticeable divot on the keypad of the building. There were often simple workarounds to the cheap keypads that corporations bought to save a buck. Technology: 0; Joe Hardy: 1. "So these people are trying to kill you and your plan is to break into their office."
"I prefer the direct approach." Vanessa smiled.
Joe fidgeted for a few seconds longer and was rewarded with the keypad popping off. A quick prod of a manual switch and the main door clicked open.
Once inside, they quickly ran up the stairs. The server room was located on the third floor. They kept a weather eye out, ducking out of sight when the guards patrolled through their path to the server room.
Joe whipped out his paperclip again to unlock server room door. Joe was very skilled at breaking and entering among other things.
"You're probably one of those guys that can get out of anything with a paperclip. Where did you learn that from?" Vanessa cast an admiring glance at Joe.
Joe smiled lazily. "It is a long story."
Once the door was open, they walked in. Joe pulled up a chair in front of the the first access terminal they came across and turned on the monitor. There wasn't even a password keeping anyone out. It made some sense, since the servers were behind locked doors, and Joe was grateful for the lucky break. He called Frank from his mobile.
"Joe?"
"Okay Frank, I am in. What am I looking for?"
"Check anything you have on Erin Miller. What was she working on? Anything?" Frank's voice rang out from the phone.
With some help from Vanessa to find the right drives, Joe pulled up the employee records. "They deleted Erin Miller's email and browser history months ago," he said with a sigh.
"Nothing is ever really deleted, Joe. Mind if I give it a try?" Vanessa whispered.
Joe nodded. Vanessa's background was in IT and she knew a lot about computers. She'd also worked at Ophelia for two and a half years, so she'd be able to move around its system faster than Joe was now. Vanessa took the now vacated seat with Joe looking over her shoulder.
A few clicks and keystrokes later and Vanessa had the old data pulled up. "She was transferred out of her project five months before she was killed. Her badge access was revoked from every lab in the facility."
It took a few nerve-wrecking minutes but Vanessa was able to put the pieces together and pull up everything Erin had pulled up until her access had been revoked.
"There." She pointed at the screen. "She accessed this file a dozen times in the days before she was killed," Vanessa said. She opened the file.
"Looks like a clinical trial for the new drug Bryonia," Joe said as he squinted at the computer.
"See here, it is FDA approved, but it has been altered. There are two files with the same name, but the older one is slightly larger."
Vanessa compared the two files. "Six patients are missing from the file Ophelia submitted to the FDA."
Joe brought his phone back up to his ear, saying, "Frank, I'm sending you a picture of six names. See what you can find on them."
While Frank checked on the names, Joe and Vanessa opened up some more files on Bryonia. Turned out Frank's hunch had been correct. It was the same drug that had been rejected from FDA two years prior. Ophelia had simply submitted a report with the doctored clinical trial data to get it approved. There was no difference to the drug's formula whatsoever.
"What? Are you sure?" Joe's voice was laced with shock. "Okay, will do. Bye."
Joe turned to Vanessa who was looking at him searchingly.
"Frank said every one of those six people are dead. Every person on that list died of heart failure within a year of participating in the clinical trial."
"Emerson must have dropped them from the study and paid people to hide it," Vanessa whispered.
Joe scowled. "They want to capture the market with a killer drug."
