Double-Back (Jake Waters Book 3) Read online

  That left the matter of how to defuse the investigation that Carlson had almost certainly been asked to pursue, probably on an unofficial basis, at least for now. More than a week passed while she waited nervously for Paul and Jeff to return from something they were doing for the Organization, allowing the window to when she could Backslide to move too far. Even so, it shouldn't have mattered.

  Thus far, what seemed like a relatively straightforward problem, had become impossibly complicated. When they had finally gotten around to acting, somehow Carlson had been aware of both moves they had attempted against her, which made Natalie wonder how secure Paul's organization was, or whether her brother or Paul was under some suspicion and being watched. Perhaps that was how the FBI had become aware of his involvement in a plot against Carlson. When Jeff and Paul returned, they were going to have to talk this out carefully, and determine where the leak was. Natalie was certain it wasn't her. Carlson hadn't had time to investigate her or to place the kind of watch on her that would have allowed them to know she had plans against the agent. At least she didn't think so.

  Natalie shook her head, wishing the dullness would go away. She was normally very astute, but her ability to think logically was clearly impacted by the side affects of the Backsliding. All she knew was the investigation that Anne wanted the FBI agent to pursue had to somehow be derailed.

  As bright as she was, Natalie had found the business world to be less enthusiastic about her skills than the university had been. After graduation she'd gone to work at a firm for an exceptional salary, but found that her job was restrictive and channeled into areas the firm felt were important, and her own instincts for where the research should go totally ignored. She was too new, and until she'd established herself within the firm, she wasn't given the opportunities she'd hoped for. One Friday night she'd allowed her frustration to let her drink far too much, and overconfident as usual, she'd driven herself home. That had been a very bad decision, and yet in other ways the most important turning point in her life.

  She'd lost control of the little Mini-Cooper she drove with unreasonable aggression. As a result, four people had been killed, two of them children, and she'd ended up in the intensive care facility of the local hospital. Not only was she close to death, but the accident had left her badly disfigured, her formerly beautiful looks now a ragged mess that even extensive plastic surgery was unlikely to be able to make whole. The police had informed her that she would be taken into custody for manslaughter once she was well enough to be discharged from the hospital. Her firm, not wanting to be associated with someone so irresponsible, had informed her she had been terminated, although her medical bills would be covered as required by law. Her services as a research biologist would no longer be required.

  A number of people came to visit her. Her brother, some of her friends, although she learned there weren't as many as she'd believed, and a number of people from the university, including several of her professors, which surprised her. Among them was Professor Morris, the old, somewhat absentminded professor, she'd worked under while doing some of her graduate work. He was an unusual specimen and while he rambled as he tried to make her feel better and simultaneously tell her of what he'd uncovered, she realized he was offering her a job. He'd heard that she had been terminated, and wanted her to know she had someplace to go when this was all over.

  "But Professor, the University is unlikely to hire me after this," Natalie had protested. "I'll probably be in jail."

  Professor Morris had just shook his head, denying that it would come to that.

  "It's not for the University," he said. "Me. I need your help on something I have been working on privately, at my lab in my house. I've made the most remarkable discovery. It will change thousands of lives, but I need someone with your kinds of skills and insights to help me complete the final tests before revealing it to the world. It'll be worth millions, not that the money is important, but I'll have done what I promised Mary so many years ago. Please, promise me you'll come and talk with me when you have recovered?"

  Natalie nodded, knowing the Professor wasn't aware of how serious her legal problems were going to be. After he left, she pushed aside his plea, and tried to concentrate on what her future might really be. It was pretty grim. No job, physically disfigured, with a leg shattered in three places, and easily proven legal responsibility for the deaths of four people. She could be shown to have consumed far too much alcohol. There were dozens of witnesses back at the club, and she had run through the light long after it had turned red. She recalled deciding there were no cars in sight on the cross streets and she didn't wish to stop. Then the speeding car she had missed seeing was coming through the intersection just as she pressed her own accelerator. It was hard to believe that just three days ago her life was normal with a bright future.

  That's when the surgeon had come in and informed her about her leg.

  "You've got an infection in there that is resistant to the normal antibiotics," he said. "I'm certain it's a form of MRSA. We're going to have to go in and remove a section of bone, which is so badly damaged it won't ever heal properly, and then try you out on a different type of antibiotic. I want to schedule the operation for tomorrow morning. The sooner we get this infected section out, the better your chances."

  Natalie had asked him about the new drug, mostly out of professional interest. She knew of the drug, and also that it was only effective in about a third of the cases, and had some truly nasty side affects. Even so, she shook her head in assent. She had little to lose at this point.

  After the surgeon left, the nurse came in to check on her and asked if she wanted any painkillers.

  "No," Natalie replied. She'd been so drugged up the last couple of days she felt the pain was both deserved and better than being so muddle-headed.

  While the hospital slowly became quiet and empty as the visitors were chased out and the night shift took over, Natalie tried to find a bright spot to focus on. Jeff was coming in the morning. He had promised the group he worked for had some decent lawyers, and he'd see what he could arrange for her. The group, basically the same Mob her father had been part of until he was killed, certainly had good lawyers, but Natalie doubted they would be of much help in her case. The facts were too iron clad.

  Unable to sleep, she grew more despondent, and at one point started to cry. As the silent tears ran down her cheeks, she wished she could undo the events of the last few days and do it all again. If she'd just taken a taxi home that night, none of this would be happening. She focused on herself back at the club, so confident and unreasonable toward those that warned her she couldn't drive safely, as if willing that version of herself to hear her pleas. Silly, but in her state, she wasn't thinking very well.

  Natalie suddenly clapped both hands around her head as the screaming pain seemed about to split her head. She spun around, lost her balance and crashed to the floor alongside her table, and vomited violently, the remains of the small dinner and at least a half dozen large drinks spewing across the floor and onto her dress.

  "Eew!" one of the other women at the table complained, and turned away from the foul smelling and looking mess.

  "I told you," one of the men said almost gleefully. "She's so drunk she can't stand. Another one who can't hold her booze."

  One of the more considerate males and his date glared at the others and bent down to help Natalie. The woman, Sandy, took her arm and led her to the bathroom to clean up as best she could after her date helped Natalie to stand.

  "Call her a cab," someone suggested.

  "No need," the date of the woman who'd gone to the bathroom with the stricken Natalie said. "We'll take her home."

  Once in her apartment, Natalie had stumbled to the bathroom to look into the mirror at herself. She was a mess. She had vomit in her hair and all over her dress, which was ripped in several places. She had a bruise on the side of her face where she'd struck the table when she fell, and she felt as if she'd been hit by a large truck.
Especially her head. She looked at the image and laughed with uncontrollable happiness.

  She was intact. She wasn't disfigured in a hospital bed with no future beyond a jail cell ahead of her. She'd made an absolute fool of herself at the club, and would have to stay away from that establishment for a long time, but that wasn't important. None of it had happened.

  She stripped off her ruined clothing, tossing it into the trash, and climbed into the shower where she washed until the hot water ran out. Climbing out, she grabbed her old, somewhat threadbare robe and wrapped it around herself sans any undergarments. She made some hot tea, then made her way to her bed where she sat surrounded by a half dozen pillows while she drank the soothing beverage and considered her situation.

  She couldn't imagine what could have produced the horrible images that were still in the back of her brain, but happily they were only that, images. She wished she knew when they had formed, because she didn't recall any of them before she'd fallen, and she worried that the impact on the floor might have induced them, which meant she might had some kind of head injury she needed to have checked out. That caused her heart to clench momentarily, and she tried to recall if her head had actually struck the floor. She simply had been too drunk to remember, but feeling around she found no tender spots. She was aware that near the back her head throbbed unlike anything she'd ever felt before. It wasn't the booze. No matter how drunk she'd gotten in the past, she'd never had that kind of headache.

  The next morning was a Sunday, and she couldn't see going to ER and waiting four hours for someone to take a cursory look at her and then send her home. Besides, while the dull ache was there, it was far better, and she still couldn't find any tender spots, and decided she hadn't struck her head. She'd decided to take a couple of aspirin she found in her medical cabinet and delay the decision of whether she'd go in until the next day.

  Monday morning came with the ache still there, but the realization that an important meeting was scheduled that day, and she really couldn't afford to miss it. By the end of the day the ache had receded to the point she could forget about it.

  Two weeks after the drunken event, she was back on campus using the library for research. Not everything was to be found as easily online as some suspected. She had found what she wanted in the stacks, and was about to leave when she spotted Professor Morris approaching. Seeing him recalled the vivid memories that still persisted, and the strange offer he'd made to her in that dream, or whatever it was. On a whim, and because she genuinely liked the older scholar, she altered her direction so as to intercept him.

  "Professor Morris," she called out as she approached.

  He looked up as his name was called, and grinned hugely when he spotted her.

  "Natalie," he said fondly, and hurried over to her. "I thought you were off to the world of business to make your fortune," he said.

  "It's not as great as I thought it would be," she admitted. "I needed to look something up in the library. How about you? Are you still teaching? I thought you planned on retiring last year."

  "I did. I did," he said, his white haired head bobbing slightly as he spoke. "Like you, I needed to look something up."

  The Professor paused, and seemed to consider something, then looked at her curiously.

  "You aren't happy with your work?" he asked.

  "It is far less challenging than I expected," Natalie admitted. "I had hoped to have more responsibility and more control over the kinds of things I investigated."

  "It'll take a couple of years to prove yourself," the Professor warned. "Eventually, with your intelligence and ability, they'll see it is best to give you more latitude."

  "Maybe so," she agreed. "I'm just impatient I guess."

  The Professor was scribbling something on a scrap of paper, which he handed to her when he was finished.

  "That's my address and phone number," he said. "I have something that I could really use some help with. You might be just the person. How about you come by this Saturday and talk with me? Maybe we can both find what we need."

  Natalie glanced at the paper, and then said uncertainly. "Okay. I'll call you and see what's a good time."

  "Anytime would be fine. Just come by when it fits your schedule," Professor Morris said. Then he added, "I need to go. It's been good seeing you again," he added, as he hurried off.

  Natalie had looked at the scrap of paper with the wobbly writing, and shrugged. She shoved it into her leather binder, not really expecting to follow up on it, and headed back to work.

  Friday had been a horrible day at work, her supervisor particularly unsympathetic to something Natalie had suggested, and that night while she sipped a glass of white wine and contemplated finding another job, she recalled the encounter with the professor. She stood and checked, finding the scrap of paper where she'd crammed it. That's when she decided she'd pay the old scholar a visit.

  "I wondered if you'd come, or whether you were just accommodating an old man," Professor Morris said as he led her through the front of his large, but older house toward the large screen patio in back. Clearly the Professor's family had money. He couldn't have afforded anything like this on his university salary. The mansion, no other word fit, was isolated from any neighbors by both distance and large, ancient trees that surround the estate on all sides.

  "Something to drink?" he asked almost formally.

  Natalie shook her head.

  "You made me curious," she admitted. "Do you really have something I might be able to help with? Are you still doing research at the university even though you are no longer teaching?"

  Professor Morris smiled, and slowly shook his head as he fingered the white hair of his beard.

  "This is something of my own. I've done everything here at the house. The university knows nothing about it. It's cost a small fortune, but I've used Mary's money for it. She was quite well off, you know. I promised her I'd find something, and it seemed like the best use of the money she left when she passed."

  Natalie recalled the Professor's wife had passed almost ten years ago, long before she'd been in his class.

  "What exactly is it?" she asked, wanting to sweep away the mystery.

  The Professor nodded. "I think I might have found a cure for diabetes," he said.

  Natalie wasn't certain how to respond to the claim. Such a find would indeed be worth an astronomical amount of money, not to mention the relief it would afford to millions.

  "I don't expect you to just believe my claims," he said. "I want to show you my test results and let you make your own evaluation. I need a secondary evaluation to ensure I haven't fooled myself. I have kept this secret up to now in part because of the value of the discovery and how certain people might want to make their fortunes from it. I intend to release the discovery to the world for free once I'm certain my results are verifiable."

  "For free?" Natalie asked, shocked.

  "Well, it won't be entirely free. But if all the pharmaceutical companies in the world know what the formula is and how to make the serum, it will keep the costs down to a minimum. No one will be able to use their proprietary ownership to exact ridiculous profits from sufferers."

  "Why wouldn't you want to benefit from your efforts?"

  "I'm old, have no immediate family, and am frankly reasonably well off. I don't need the money, and I did this for Mary. She would have wished it," Professor Morris confessed.

  "You really believe you have found something?" Natalie asked.

  It was almost impossible to believe. Large pharmaceutical firms with huge staffs spent millions and worked for years in hopes of a major breakthrough such as this. For Professor Morris to have uncovered something in his private lab in his home was almost too remarkable to be believed.

  "Let me show you what I have, and you make your own evaluation," he said.

  That first day she'd gone on a tour. His lab was in the basement of the large mansion, an area that had been carefully renovated when he had decided what he had in mind. S
tate of the art equipment had been installed to support his inquiries. All of his records were kept in a large locked steel cabinet. While there were several logbooks, the Professor was no stranger to modern technology, and he'd kept most of records as electronic files, stored on a pair of removable hard disks which he connected to the computer when he wanted to make entries. Nothing of importance could be found on the main computers. A backup of all data had been copied to a number of high density DVDs, which sat in a small container near the back of the cabinet.

  "It would probably be best if you read my journal first," the Professor said. "That way you can understand my approach, and what I hoped to discover at each step. Then you can work your way through my test results, and see if you agree with my conclusions."

  Natalie spent the rest of the day, and all of the next reading through the files on the hard disk. Years of work were condensed into careful entries. She could immediately sense the brilliance she had observed when she was a student of this man, and by the end of the weekend she was becoming excited at the possibility that he was actually accomplishing what he believed.

  "I can come over evenings and next weekend," she promised. She wasn't quite ready to quit her job until she was certain there was something here for her. Without telling the professor, she also planned to circulate her resume throughout the industry in parallel with the time she would spend with the Professor.

  Two weeks later she was convinced the Professor was indeed on a path that promised success. It was impossible to be certain until the full testing program was completed. Natalie had read of projects that had come this far, only to fail in the final testing, but she was convinced that even if this compound wasn't all the Professor hoped, it would be a great boon to diabetes around the world.