Free Wild by Tina Folsom Page B

decent person that I had forgotten to recognize one when I met one? It was inexcusable.
    I had to trust him.
    And I had to get back upstairs fast, before he got back and found me snooping around in his lab.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    6. Vince’s Trespass
     
    She had acted strange when I had left her. I was worried, truly worried I had blown it. She was like a delicate flower and I was only too aware that I was the elephant in the glass shop, but I had no time to think about how to remedy this now. I had things to take care of.
    Picking up her suitcases from the lockers at Transbay Terminal took only a few minutes. I dropped them into the trunk of my BMW and got back into the driver’s seat. The car was black and its windows were tinted so dark nobody on the outside could see in. I avoided being seen and possibly recognized by some old acquaintances, as slim as the chance might be.
    I took the back roads via Twin Peaks to get onto UCSF’s campus passing by the University’s Aldea housing units. Saturday was generally a quiet day at the University. All staff except for medical personnel was off work and those working were busy covering each other’s shifts. It would be easy enough to slip in and out unseen.
    I parked my car behind a mobile construction office where it wouldn’t get noticed for a while. On weekends the perimeter access doors were all locked. It didn’t matter. I had acquired a key card shortly after the new system had been implemented on campus, and relied on the inefficiency of University administrative staff to cancel lost and stolen cards and cards of deceased employees. I could always count on the underpaid and underappreciated staff to lack morale and a sense of responsibility.
    I swiped my card at the door and heard the familiar high pitched beep granting me access to the building. It was good to know nothing had changed in the years since I had worked here.
    I knew where Entwhistle’s lab was and had no trouble finding it. I had a key to it, as I had a key to many of the labs at UCSF. It was just another loophole in the University’s control environment. Anybody who knew the number of the key they needed could order it via the University’s own lock shop and have it delivered to any University address.
    The rest was easy. Their internal controls had more holes than Swiss cheese. I took advantage of the system, one I had once been so frustrated with. I regularly helped myself to the supplies I needed for my research and keys to the various labs were essential for that. It was not that I didn’t want to pay for the supplies, but certain things I couldn’t order without a valid medical license, and mine had expired almost thirty years ago. I therefore had to count on the University’s lax security systems to get the restricted supplies I needed to continue my research, especially drugs like morphine and other controlled substances.
    I entered Entwhistle’s lab. It was a large room, divided by so-called benches lined with lots of cabinets, sinks and pipes for various gases and liquids. Boxes of extra supplies stood everywhere. It was the usual chaos I encountered in every lab I knew.
    I knew most clinical trial records were kept in large ring binders. Entwhistle had several live studies and it took me a while to find the one Annette was enrolled in. I read through the protocol, but it didn’t involve any injection. It was just a regular blood study, nothing out of the ordinary. It was the wrong study.
    I had seen the cash she had taken out of her jeans pocket: eighty dollars, which seemed too much for just one visit.  I confirmed my suspicion when I found the page outlining compensation to the study subjects. It was only forty dollars per visit.
    I went through more of his binders, but there was nothing. What if he was doing this study without approval? Then there wouldn’t be a binder. He would have to keep the records somewhere else. Each physician also had an academic office separate from