Chapter 22: Discovery Phase
596 words
The conference table in Marcus’s office was a graveyard of empty coffee cups and takeout containers. The air smelled of stale pepperoni and high-stakes desperation. Sarah sat in the corner, her hands wrapped around a mug of warm water because she couldn't afford the tea bags.
Two days had passed since she ripped up Julian’s check. The euphoria of that moment had curdled into a cold, hard knot of terror in her stomach. That was fifty thousand dollars. She had three dollars and twelve cents in her pocket.
"He’s stalling," Marcus growled, pacing the worn carpet. He threw a stack of papers onto the table. "Blackwood’s legal team sent over a terabyte of meaningless data. Cafeteria menus. Parking validations. Newsletter archives. They’re trying to bury us in noise."
"And the emails?" Sarah asked, her voice raspy.
"Gone," Marcus said, though his eyes didn't look defeated. They looked hungry. "According to his lawyers, a 'server migration error' wiped Julian's personal correspondence from 2018 to 2020. Conveniently covering the entire development phase of the diet pill."
Sarah felt the blood drain from her face. She adjusted the waistband of her maternity jeans, the elastic digging into her bruised skin. "If we don't find proof he knew about the side effects, I get nothing, right? No settlement. And I still owe you for the filing fees."
"If we don't find proof, Sarah, Julian walks away with a clean conscience and a higher stock price," Marcus corrected, stopping in front of a young man hunched over a glowing laptop at the end of the table. "But bad men are arrogant. They think hitting 'delete' makes a sin disappear."
The IT specialist, a kid named Kevin who charged more per hour than Sarah used to make in a week, didn't look up. His fingers flew across the keyboard. Lines of code cascaded down the screen, reflecting in his glasses.
"He used a commercial wiper program," Kevin muttered. "Sloppy. He overwrote the file headers, but he didn't scrub the magnetic platters. It's like tearing the table of contents out of a book and claiming the story doesn't exist."
Sarah leaned forward, her heart hammering against her ribs. The baby kicked, a sharp jolt. Everything depended on this. If Kevin found nothing, she would be giving birth in a shelter, bankrupt and broken.
"Got a frag," Kevin said softly. The room went dead silent. The hum of the computer fan sounded like a jet engine.
"Can you reconstruct it?" Marcus leaned over his shoulder, his shark-like grin returning.
"It's patchy. Recovering from the shadow drive." Kevin hit a final key. A window popped up on the main monitor. It was a fragmented email chain, date-stamped three years ago.
Sarah squinted at the screen. The text was broken by garbled characters, but the message from Julian_B@BlackwoodPharma.com was clear enough to stop her heart.
Subject: RE: Toxicity Report / Fetal complications
To: Head of R&D
I saw the lab results. I don't care about the rat studies. The IPO launches next month. If we delay for a redesign, the stock tanks and I lose the board. The drug kills fetuses? Fine. It's a weight loss pill, not a prenatal vitamin. Bury the data. Delete this thread.
Sarah read the words twice. The room spun. He hadn't just been negligent. He hadn't just been careless.
Marcus straightened up, his face grim but satisfied. "We don't have a divorce case anymore, Sarah."
He tapped the screen where Julian had typed Bury the data.
"We have a homicide case."
End of Chapter 22
