Free THE VIRON CONSPIRACY (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS #4) by Lawrence de Maria

in sugar syrup. Some doctor, I am. Two packs a day and balushahis. I’ll probably be dead before some of my patients.
    He felt a drop of rain and returned to his “smoking box” to move it inside the tent to keep it dry for his next break.
    The exhausted physician barely registered the inscription stamped on the side of the box:
     
    THIRD WORLD RELIEF ORGANIZATION
    PROTEIN BARS
    PRODUCT OF THE USA
    DONATED BY THE BVM CORPORATION

CHAPTER 9 - ARMED AND DANGEROUS
     
    The next morning Scarne spoke to Winston Todd. The lawyer told him that after her husband’s death Kate Vallance sold her house in Boone City and moved into an apartment the couple owned in Chicago.
    “Bryan spent a lot of time in Chicago,” Todd explained. “He was a fixture at the CME Group, which is the name of the new commodities and futures company created when the Chicago Board of trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange merged in 2007. The BVM Corporation trades millions of futures and option contracts every day to protect itself from swings in commodity prices. Bryan was considered something of a wunderkind for his ability to spot potential price fluctuations. I’ll ring Mrs. Vallance and set up a meeting for you.”
    Scarne then called Nigel Blue, the chief of staff at Shields Inc., the media conglomerate.
    “I need a favor.”
    He explained what he wanted.
    “You spend so much time pretending to be one of our writers I could put you on salary,” Blue said.
    Scarne had recently assumed the identity of a book reviewer on a case involving a publisher owned by Shields.
    “Can I get medical?”
    “We couldn’t afford to put you on our plan. You’re always getting shot or stabbed. Come by around 5. I’ll have something for you.”
    Todd called back a half hour later.
    “Kate wants you to go to her apartment.” He rattled off an address. “She suggested noon tomorrow, for lunch. Can you do that?”
    Scarne said he could.
    “Fine. I’ll call her to confirm. Best of luck.”
    The rest of the morning was spent with Evelyn on paperwork and some preliminary travel arrangements.  After that, a working lunch in the office was followed by an afternoon devoted to bringing Noah up to speed on some assignments he’d have to handle by himself in Scarne’s absence, which would be lengthy.
    “Let me get this straight,” Sealth said at one point, holding up a file, “while you gallivant around the country working off a $100,000 line of credit, I sit in a hotel lobby trying to catch some hedge fund slime ball from Mamaroneck, wherever the hell that is, bonking a woman not his wife.”
    “It’s in Westchester,” Scarne said. “And I’ll have you know I rarely gallivant. Take your Kindle. I never go on a stakeout without one. I read a lot of books just sitting around.”
    “I don’t have a Kindle.”
    “Just put a Kindle app on your iPad.”
    Because of his last case, Scarne considered himself something of an expert on electronic publishing. Both Noah and Evelyn were getting throughly sick of his frequent suggestions on how they could improve their reading experiences. He handed Sealth another file.
    “Now, here’s an interesting one.”
    Sealth opened it.
    “A fucking kidnapped poodle?”
    “Fifi, to be exact. Mrs. DuPont thinks one of her ex-husbands snatched it, but she doesn’t know which one.”
    “How many are there?”
    “Five. That’s what makes the case so challenging. Fortunately, all the exes live in the Tristate area, so you won’t have to gallivant too far.”
    Scarne was enjoying himself.
    “The pinnacle of my career,” Sealth muttered.
    “If the dognapper hasn’t already put Fifi in the microwave, see if you can get her back in one piece. Mrs. duPont is worth $60 million.”
     
    ***
    Scarne had to decide what gun to take with him on what was shaping up to be an extensive trip. He never considered not taking a weapon, even on a case that might turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Sometimes, he knew, the geese shoot