Transhuman: A Zack Wilder Thriller by N.J. Croft

Author:N.J. Croft [Croft, N.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

This time, Zack did not try to get an appointment with Mark Johnson, the CEO of CureCo Pharma. He wanted to take the man by surprise. See if he could gauge whether Johnson was aware of what was going on. How deeply was he involved in all of this? Or was he merely providing a service for the Athanasia Foundation?

Zack suspected something more. There were too many ties with other people and organizations for Johnson to be entirely innocent.

He took the stairs to the sixth floor, let himself into the reception area, and knew immediately he was too late. Yellow crime scene tape crisscrossed the door to Johnson’s office. The same pretty young woman was at the desk, but her eyes were red from crying.

She jumped and let out a squeak when she saw Zack. Then gave herself a little shake and made a visible effort to pull herself together. “Sorry,” she said, swallowing and forcing a smile. “How can I help you?”

“I was hoping to see Mark.” He waved a hand to Johnson’s office.

“You can’t.” Her gaze fixed on the door. “He’s dead. Mark’s dead. I can’t believe it. Why would he…?”

Zack stepped closer slowly, not wishing to alarm her. “What happened?”

“They say he killed himself. But why would he? He was always so cheerful and upbeat. And he booked himself a holiday yesterday. Why would he do that if he was suicidal? It doesn’t make sense.”

“When did he do it?” She seemed happy to talk about it, probably needed to talk about it to someone, and he’d take advantage of that.

“Last night. One of the cleaning staff found him. He’d…” She swallowed and looked away. “He put the gun in his mouth and blew out his brains. The police have been and gone. They don’t care. To them it’s an open and closed case.”

Zack thought it highly unlikely that Johnson had shot himself voluntarily. But why take him out now? “Had he been working on anything in particular? Anything unusual?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

He decided sticking as close to the truth as possible was his best way of getting her to talk. “I’m a private investigator. Mark was helping with my inquiries. I’m looking for a missing girl and I’m a little worried that he found something out that distressed him in some way. I’m trying to decide if I need to go to the police myself.”

“Yes, I remember now. He mentioned it after your last visit. But I don’t see how it could be related. What could he find out that would make him…?” She waved a hand at the door.

Nothing. But maybe Johnson had started asking the wrong people the wrong questions. “I don’t know, but maybe something occurred to him after I left.”

He gave her time to think about it. “He did ask me to collate all the records for the drug trials over the last five years. And the matching follow-up reports.”

“What are the follow up reports?”

“After the trials finish, we usually

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