Chapter 6 - The Numbers That Changed)
The police traced the hospital call.
It came from a prepaid phone.
The device was already turned off.
Rachel wanted to believe that meant someone was frightened.
Detective Shaw believed frightened people could still be dangerous.
Hospital security placed additional restrictions around Tobe's room.
No visitors without Rachel's approval.
No information released by telephone.
No staff access without identification.
By afternoon, public health investigators had obtained an emergency order to enter Harbor House.
Detective Shaw called Rachel from inside the building.
"We found the garden."
Rachel stood beside the hospital window.
Chicago stretched below beneath a gray afternoon sky.
"And?"
"It's larger than I expected."
"How large?"
"Four indoor growing rooms."
Rachel blinked.
"I've only seen one."
"Three are downstairs."
"Downstairs?"
"Did Tobe ever mention a basement?"
"No."
Shaw was quiet.
"We found bags of soil, fertilizer, supplement containers and laboratory equipment."
"Laboratory equipment?"
"Basic equipment. Scales. Sample tubes. Refrigeration."
Rachel pressed the phone harder against her ear.
"And the moon powder?"
"We found containers with matching labels."
Her knees weakened.
"What's in it?"
"Testing is underway."
"What about the soil?"
"Same."
Rachel stared at Tobe through the glass reflection.
He was playing a simple game on the tablet.
"Where is Elaine Ward?"
"Her attorney says she will cooperate."
"That is not what I asked."
"She's at home."
Rachel laughed once without humor.
"My son is in a hospital bed and she's at home."
"Mrs. Moore."
"Did you find Wade?"
"No."
The answer frightened Rachel more than she wanted to admit.
That evening Dr. Patel brought better news.
Tobe's obstruction was beginning to improve.
There was no sign of bowel injury.
The team believed medication could be started carefully once they were confident it would not worsen the obstruction.
"He's going to recover?" Rachel asked.
"We have every reason to believe so."
Rachel's eyes filled with tears.
It was the first hopeful sentence she had heard since entering the hospital.
She sat beside Tobe and kissed his forehead.
He smiled weakly.
"Can I get pancakes when I go home?"
"You can get the biggest pancakes in Chicago."
"With strawberries?"
"Two strawberries."
He frowned.
"That's not a lot."
Rachel laughed despite herself.
"Twenty strawberries."
"Okay."
At 8:00 that evening, Detective Shaw returned.
This time she was carrying copies of laboratory documents recovered from Harbor House.
"We found a locked filing cabinet in Elaine Ward's office."
Rachel sat up.
"What was inside?"
"Environmental testing reports."
Rachel already knew what the answer would be.
"When were they done?"
"Three months ago."
Her mouth went dry.
"What did they show?"
"Parasite eggs in one batch of soil."
Three months.
Rachel looked at her son.
Three months.
"And they kept the program open."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"The report says the contaminated soil should be removed and replaced."
"Was it?"
"We don't think so."
Rachel's anger became strangely quiet.
"What did Elaine do?"
"According to internal documents, she ordered retesting through a laboratory selected by Pioneer."
"And?"
"The second report came back clean."
Rachel remembered Tobe's words.
Somebody changed numbers.
"Was it actually clean?"
"We don't know yet."
Shaw placed two pages side by side.
The first was from an independent environmental laboratory.
The second was from Pioneer.
Rachel did not understand most of the measurements.
But one thing was obvious.
The sample identification numbers were almost identical.
Except for one digit.
"They tested a different sample," Rachel said.
"That is one possibility."
"No. That's what happened."
"Possibly."
"Wade found out."
"We think so."
"Then why did Elaine accuse him of stealing soil?"
"Because he removed samples without authorization."
"He was trying to prove it."
"Maybe."
Rachel looked at Shaw.
"You still don't trust him."
"I don't trust anyone until evidence earns it."
Rachel could not argue with that.
The detective leaned forward.
"There is something else."
She showed Rachel a photograph taken in the basement.
Shelves of sealed containers.
Silver packets.
Plastic bottles.
Children's paper cups.
On one shelf were dozens of boxes labeled with a code.
PW 17.
Rachel pointed.
"What is that?"
"We don't know."
But when the hospital laboratory finished testing one of Tobe's moon powder packets later that night, they found the same code printed invisibly beneath the folded seal.
PW 17.
And the powder did not contain parasite eggs.
May you like
It contained something else.
Something that changed the entire investigation.
