Killer Cure

By Aeriell Lawton

Killer Cure is a murder mystery set within the framework of a pharmaceutical company that has found the medical cure for MS. One researcher has found that the lab results do not match the results given to the FDA which leads to her death with our intrepid detectives investigating.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781304710079

Book preview

Killer Cure

Killer Cure

Aeriell Lawton

Copyright

Copyright ©2013 by Orion Publishing House- All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

No responsibility or liability is assumed by the Publisher for any injury, damage or financial loss sustained to persons or property from the use of this information, personal or otherwise, either directly or indirectly. While every effort has been made to ensure reliability and accuracy of the information within, all liability, negligence or otherwise, from any use, misuse or abuse of the operation of any methods, strategies, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein, is the sole responsibility of the reader.

Any copyrights not held by publisher are owned by their respective authors.

All information is generalized, presented for informational purposes only and presented as is without warranty or guarantee of any kind.

Any trademarks and brands referred to in this book are for illustrative purposes only, are the property of their respective owners and not affiliated with this publication in any way. Any trademarks are being used without permission, and the publication of the trademark is not authorized by, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owner.

ISBN 13: 978-1-304-71007-9

Dedication

To T,

Someone that I admire

and am honored

to be her friend.

Chapter 1

Dr. Maggie Simmons was hunched over a microscope in the research and development lab of White Light pharmaceuticals. It was 2:45 AM, and she'd been staring at the microscope for so long that she was starting to get a migraine, and the edge of her vision was becoming blurry, but she had to know for sure. There was too much at stake not to be 100% certain. She scribbled some notes, rapidly on a legal pad that was on the table next to the microscope double checking and even triple checking the information and results of the tests that she had been running since 9:30 PM that evening. There was no mistaking it, this particular formula for the new drug White Light was producing would cause liver failure, kidney failure and possibly lead to cancer.

Her mind was racing frantically now. There's no way we can let this out into the world. It would be like opening Pandora's box she was pretty sure the results she was seeing in the microscope in the dark and graveyard quiet laboratory, where the real test results, and not the ones that were submitted to the FDA had been altered to show extremely promising results for the drug, which had been developed to help treat multiple sclerosis, also known as MS, which is a degenerative disease that affects the body's central nervous system and affects the brain's ability to communicate with the spinal cord and the rest of the body. The symptoms vary widely from patient to patient, but the most common symptoms include spasticity in the affected area such as the arms and legs. Hearing loss and inability to speak properly, a constant severe pain, and worst of all, it will eventually affect a person's ability to swallow. And although certain symptoms may come and go throughout the course of the disease others will be more permanent and severe depending on how far the disease has progressed. The individual suffering from the disease will eventually die due to the inability for the nerves to send the proper signals to the body that allow the lungs to function and even the heart to pump. It was a death that Maggie would not wish on her worst enemy.

The results that Maggie had screaming at her from a microscope and computer database, testified beyond a shadow of a doubt, that one in five individuals who took this medication that was supposed to be a miracle drug for the disease would develop horrendous complications that would cause them even more unnecessary pain and suffering on top of that provided by the disease itself. And although one in five people does not seem like a very high number when you multiply that by the number of people on the planet that were dealing with the disease and who had been waiting on pins and needles for this supposedly miracle drug to greatly improve their quality of life. The result could be catastrophic. There could be millions of people that would suffer and die needlessly.

All in the name of what profit she could not believe someone at a company with such an ethical reputation as that of White Light pharmaceuticals, would stoop to doctoring study results in order to make a profit it had to be slightly more complicated than that, it just had to be Maggie could not bring herself to believe otherwise she knew she had to report her findings to the FDA immediately. And because she did not know for certain who else at the company would be aware of this corruption. She had opened up her phone and was placing a call to Mark Callahan, a reporter friend who works for the Seattle Sun and was always interested in a good corporate conspiracy and corruption story. She bit her nails nervously

Reviews for Killer Cure

[cathygeha · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is the second short story based in Seattle with Detective Ian Rite as the main investigator. Detective Rite and his partner work to discover who murdered a woman working for a big drug company and why information she might have tried to pass on to someone else about research tampering might be the reason she was killed. The premise of the story and getting to know Detective Rite might have been interesting but I felt this should have been the rough draft and a few more editorial revisions made before putting the story up for sale. Specific problems: The dialogues were not separated into paragraphs with each speaker being separated from the next. Verb tenses were not always consistent. Punctuation was used where it was not needed and needed where it was not used. I managed to finish the story and got the gist of it but would recommend a bit more editing in the near future.