Lethal Dose by Jeff Buick Read Free Book Online

did,” she fired back at him.”Yesterday, in my ‘excellent’ presentation.” She felt the tears welling up and secretly cursed herself for being so emotional. This was business, and emotions had no place here. She stared into his cold eyes. “The difference between my research and Ray Jenkins’s is that mine will save lives. His will wipe a few wrinkles off some aging faces.”
    â€œWrinkles are big business, Jen, you know that. The boomers can’t get their credit cards out fast enough when what they’re buying will strip off some of the years. And they’ve got the money.”
    â€œMoney,” she said. “It’s all about money. Always money.”
    He snickered and shook his head slightly. “Look at you. Talk about a hypocrite. If the board had decided to fund your research, you’d be ecstatic. Because you got the money. When you say that it’s all about money, keep in mind you’re as guilty as anyone else.”
    â€œBut I want it for the right reasons, Mel.”
    Jennifer Pearce turned from the lake where the morning sun was burning off the mist and strode back toward the parking lot. Her hands were clenched in fists, and she could feel her teeth grinding as her jaw tightened. The tears spilled down her cheeks, but she didn’t brush them away. The rented Taurus sat in the parking lot, one of only two cars at this early hour. She glanced at Lun’s rental, wondering how he knew where to find her. It was a passing thought; she didn’t really care. She slid behind the wheel and gunned the engine, slamming the transmission into drive and spinning gravel across the driver’s side of the other car as she careened out of the lot.
    Eight years.
    She wiped the tears now, so she could see the twists and turns in the road as it descended from the top of the ridge toward Lake Superior. Eight years of her life with Marcon Pharmaceuticals, and this was where it was to end. Her research usurped by another group whose focus was on esthetics, not disease. She couldn’t believe Marcon had stooped to the levels of the other Big Pharma giants. The one reason she had brought her box of pens and her Ph.D. to Marcon was their commitment to discovering and developing new drugs that targeted disease. Under Roy Vagelos, the company’s CEO from 1985 to 1996, Marcon was the industry trendsetter in R&D. The company encouraged individual thinking that fostered new ideas and looked to lighting paths seldom traveled. It was the one by which all the Big Pharma companies set their benchmarks. Edward Pittman, the pharmaceutical analyst for the big money pension funds, used Marcon as a barometer for what was happening in the industry.
    Marcon was the cornerstone of excellence. And that was why she had hung her shingle at Marcon rather than the hundred-odd other companies that had wooed her when she exited MIT with the ink still fresh on her doctorate. That, and the promises.
    Her own research team, almost unlimited funding, the chance to set her own agenda; the offer was too good to turn down. And although her Phase I tests had gone well, her Phase II tests were average at best. Now they were pulling the rug out from under her.
    The tears returned when she thought of the failed marriage and two other disastrous relationships, ruined by her reluctance to commit one hundred percent to anything or anyone outside the lab. She smashed her fist on the steering wheel, remembering the sadness in her husband’s eyes as he walked out the front door for the last time. She had let him go, choosing her career over his love. The road blurred as the tears flowed freely now. She accelerated into a curve and then hammered on the brakes as she realized she wasn’t going to make it. The rear end of the Taurus fishtailed and slammed into a gnarled basswood. The car threatened to veer into the trees for a second, then regained its grip on the road and came back under