Chapter 12 - The Video Pierce Never Expected Anyone to See)
The video was dated nine weeks before Tobe entered the emergency room.
Pierce sat in Elaine's office.
He did not know he was being recorded.
Elaine had apparently activated a hidden desk camera.
Their conversation lasted forty three minutes.
Investigators showed Rachel only the relevant portions.
Pierce spoke first.
"The exposure has already occurred."
Elaine sounded nervous.
"We should notify parents."
"And create panic before we understand clinical significance?"
"Children are symptomatic."
"Some children complain about stomachaches every week."
"We have a positive parasite test."
"We have one positive test."
"We have more than one sick child."
Pierce leaned back.
"And that creates a unique data opportunity."
Elaine said nothing.
Pierce continued.
"We cannot intentionally expose pediatric subjects to a parasite. Obviously."
Rachel's hands clenched.
"But if exposure occurs independently, observing responses is different."
Elaine asked, "Without consent?"
Pierce answered, "The existing nutrition consent is broad."
"It doesn't cover this."
"It covers nutritional observation."
"Not infected children."
A long silence.
Then Pierce said, "Do you want Harbor House to survive?"
Elaine's voice became quiet.
"What does that mean?"
"It means your center is six months from losing funding."
Rachel looked at Detective Shaw.
There it was.
Pressure.
Money.
Fear.
Not an excuse.
But an explanation.
Pierce continued.
"Pioneer can extend the grant. We can fund staff. We can keep the doors open."
"And in return?"
"No dramatic decisions."
"You mean don't close the garden."
"I mean collect information before destroying an opportunity."
The video skipped ahead.
Elaine asked, "What about the soil report?"
Pierce said, "We'll obtain a confirming sample."
"From the same bed?"
A pause.
Pierce smiled slightly.
"We'll obtain a clean confirming sample."
Rachel felt physically ill.
He knew.
Not suspicion.
Not negligence.
Knowledge.
The final portion showed something worse.
PW 17.
Pierce instructed Elaine to continue administering the supplement to selected children.
Elaine asked whether it could increase cramping.
Pierce said, "Temporarily."
"And if parents complain?"
"Tell them seasonal stomach illness is circulating."
Rachel turned away from the screen.
"Enough."
Detective Shaw stopped the recording.
Rachel walked to the window.
"So Elaine knew too."
"Yes."
"She had the chance to stop it."
"Yes."
"And she didn't."
"No."
Rachel looked down at the street.
"Then why send this?"
"Maybe guilt."
"Maybe a deal."
"Maybe both."
The evidence led to additional arrests.
Two Pioneer administrators.
A laboratory contractor who knowingly mislabeled samples.
The owner of Great Lakes Renewal Materials.
But Elaine remained missing.
Then Wade remembered something.
A storage facility.
Months earlier, Elaine had asked him to move boxes from Harbor House to a storage unit near Cicero.
He gave police the address.
The unit was rented under a false business name.
Inside were records.
Backup drives.
Financial ledgers.
And Elaine Ward.
Alive.
Sitting on the concrete floor.
She had not been hiding from police.
She had been hiding from a man named Patrick Sloane.
Pioneer's private security consultant.
The same man investigators now believed had made the anonymous call to Rachel.
The same man who had followed Wade.
The same man who had gone to Elaine's apartment looking for the backup drive.
When police found Elaine, she immediately surrendered.
Patrick Sloane was arrested hours later at O'Hare International Airport.
In his luggage was a laptop containing instructions to destroy Harbor House server backups.
For the first time since Tobe became sick, Rachel believed the truth might actually survive.
May you like
But truth did not immediately create peace.
Tobe had started waking up at night.
