“Oh my God, what am I going to do?” Overwhelmed, she grew light-headed and pain radiated through her chest. With knees buckling, she slid to the ground. The coolness of the concrete felt good to her sweating skin. Looking up at the fluorescent lights, she saw someone hovering over her and thought she heard her name being called.

“Val!”

Someone smacked her cheek not once but several times, the last swipe was hard. She stared at the person who was hitting her, and then blinked her eyes.

“Val! Are you okay?” Gwen yelled. “You scared the crap out of me. I was looking everywhere for you and I finally saw you standing here. And then I watched you fall to the floor!”

“I’m okay,” Val whispered.

“Are you sure? I think I should get some help.”

“No, please don’t.” Val put her hands to her eyes and started to cry.

“What’s wrong?”

Through the sobs, Val told her about her meeting and the realization she was going to be fired and possibly killed. “If he finds out I’ve been helping Jack and Thomas get evidence against him he’s going to kill me too. Just like he killed Julia. He’s guilty. I know he is. It explains all of this.”

“If he’s coming after you, he’s coming after me too. We have to stick together.”

The thought of death made Val want to unburden herself, clear her conscience from the lie she told. Though she wanted to tell Gwen how she was hired and come clean, she hesitated confessing that she’d never met Oliver Solaris. The words just wouldn’t come out. Gwen had been a good friend to her and the one thing she didn’t want to lose right now was that friendship.

“Gwen, what are we going to do?”

The two women sat on the floor, backs against the wall, knees bent. “We have no choice. We have to find out how he fits into all of this.”

“Yes, we do.” After a few minutes Val finally stood. “Well, we’d better get back to work.”

Gwen also stood and began brushing dirt off the back of her pants. She stopped mid swipe and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. It’s the reason I went looking for you in the first place. Zoe, the toxicologist, asked where you were. She needs to see you right away.”

25

Val ran towards the toxicology lab, eager to hear the news waiting for her. There would be only one reason Zoe would need to see her. The drug testing was complete on Samantha Ritcher. As she walked through the doorway to the lab, she fought to catch her breath, and hoped that her eyes had dried out enough so that it wouldn’t look like she had been crying.