Page 93 of Tough Justice

When she couldn’t contain her huff, he raised an eyebrow. “For the record, I did try helping people,” he said. “The two years I worked at that prison, I created a drug that would have cut an opioid addict’s rehab from months down to weeks. Big Pharma refused to take me on and let me test my drug on animals, let alone humans. I needed their financial backing, access to their testing facilities, and their name to back me up before the FDA would even look at my drug. Big Pharma refused to involve themselves in a treatment that would have saved countless lives, and you want to know why?”

A sick feeling crept through her. She knew where this was going, and worse, she understood that helpless feeling. Of wanting to help, but not being allowed to because of bureaucratic red tape. She’d seen it, watched her dad live with it.

“Because I was a threat to their bottom line.” He stood and began pacing angrily around the cave. “These companies are making money on both ends, selling the addictive opioids and the naloxone to counter the inevitable overdoses. Of course they didn’t want a drug out there that would make rehab easier and decrease the number of addicts. Hell no. Hypocritical assholes, all of them.”

On that, she had to agree with him.

When he’d worked off his frustration, he sat again on the chair, staring at her with such an eerie calm it sent goose bumps racing up her back. “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” The grin he made was more of a sneer. “I created a new drug, an opioid cocktail that far surpassed anything available by prescription. Working in a prison also provided great opportunities. A small lab. Test subjects.”

Tori gaped. “You tested your drug on inmates?” In her head, she could hear Damon Sanchez’s angry accusation. But Wil hadn’t worked at Sheridan. Of that she was certain.

He shrugged. “They were more than willing.”

“It was you they were after in Pennsylvania, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “I had a good thing going there. Unfortunately, the first generation of my drug was a bit too strong and left more than a few bodies in its wake. That’s what caught the Feds’ attention. Gray death has been around for years, but I made it better. This version is my creation. The best high money can buy.” To her horror, his chest puffed up with pride.

Tori could only stare, dumfounded. The way he talked so nonchalantly about people dying from taking his drug…

“I had to close up shop. I moved back to Colorado, landed a job with a small hospital, and eventually at North Metro. Before starting things up again here, I had to tweak my formula so it didn’t catch quite as much attention. In a way, maybe I should thank the Feds. They forced me to change. After all, if all my buyers overdosed, there’d be no repeat customers. It’s a delicate balance, really, creating a drug that gives the most addictively amazing high without killing the recipient.”

Tori shoved both hands into her hair, trying desperately to reconcile the monster in front of her with the intelligent, responsible, ethical doctor she thought she knew. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does.” He looked at her as if it were her that was crazy. “Those idiots, Maynard and Shibowsky, get to play God every day, and they don’t have half the intelligence you or I do. They only think they’re at the top of the food chain. They flaunt their fancy cars and shove their Rolexes in everyone’s faces. What they don’t know is that I’ve got better watches than they do. Did you know I own three Rolexes, two Tags, and a Patek Phillipe? Those morons don’t even know what a Patek Phillipe is. It’s worth more than all their watches combined. And their cars and big houses? I’ve got condos in Europe and the Caribbean. I’ve got garages crammed with better sports cars than they’ll ever have the privilege of owning.”

Tori couldn’t believe her ears. Whatever insidious creature her friend had turned into was on a roll. It was a confession, of sorts. One that would take him straight to Hell. “What good is all that if no one knows you have them?”

He pointed to his chest. “I know. It’s like buying a stolen Rembrandt and hiding it away in a special vault. No one will ever see it, but the person who has it knows, and that’s what matters. Besides, when I’m out of the country, nobody knows me. It would be stupid to flaunt all that here with the DEA sniffing around. Only incompetent drug lords call attention to themselves.”

Drug lord. That’s how he really thought of himself—as the lord of everything and everyone around him. A superior one, no less. This went beyond greed and far surpassed the need to be better than anyone else. Wil was a sociopath, and sociopaths didn’t care who they hurt on their path to success.

Sociopaths killed.

She narrowed her eyes. “You tried to kill Deck.”

“Not at first.”

“But you encouraged me to date him.”

He shrugged. “Of course I did. What better way to keep tabs on the same fed who was investigating me? Your information about that warrant in Loveland was priceless.”

“So you did tell the dealer that we were coming.”

“I did.” His expression softened like it had hundreds of times over the course of their friendship, and he leaned in just close enough to place a hand on her arm. She fought the urge to recoil. “Your relationship with Deck was incredibly useful to me, but I’m sorry you were hurt. You weren’t supposed to be with him those nights. The first time T-Lo tried to kill Decker, I actually went to your house to check on you, but he was there. I waited for him to leave. I stuck around for a while.” He grinned slyly. “Then I heard you screaming with what had to be one heck of an orgasm, so I figured you were okay.”

“It was you outside my window.” The person Deck had chased in the woods that night. She covered her mouth with her hand, so repulsed she wanted to throw up. And he’d known that she and Deck had been intimate before she’d even told him.

Again, he chuckled. He withdrew his hand and leaned back. “Yeah, sorry about that. Didn’t mean to go all Peeping Tom on you, but it confirmed what I’d been hoping for. That you two were getting closer and if I was subtle enough I could keep getting more details from you about the DEA’s investigation. Their investigation into me.”

From the way his eyes glittered, it was obvious that having an entire federal agency after him hadn’t scared him off. It had only served to stroke his ego. “You’re crazy if you think you’ll get away with this.”

“Crazy?” He raised an eyebrow. “I’m anything but. This has become a highly successful business. A tax-free one, with the kind of income I deserve.”

Deserve? Maybe Wil’s complete and total lack of compassion over Damon Sanchez’s death was just one of the signs she now realized she’d unwittingly missed.

“Damon Sanchez didn’t die of a heart attack, did he?” She knew the answer to her question, had held the vial in her hands, but needed to hear him say it.

“No.”