Chapter Sixty-Two
Dallas, Texas
DEREK MATHESON SAT before his laptop in a sleek suite at H?tel Swexan, high above the Dallas Arts District. Windows beyond his screen framed the city’s skyline, bathed in golden haze. Reunion Tower blinked in the distance. The glass spires of downtown mirrored the sky.
The annual BioFrontiers Summit conference was in full swing downstairs, but Matheson had retreated to his suite, preferring solitude to schmoozing.
He had left her downstairs to deal with the media.
Though he had never been shy in front of a camera, the news that Walt Kimbel had been murdered had sent shock waves through the industry.
The only good news was that the Metairie Police Department had kept the death-by-fentanyl details quiet. Matheson had learned of it from Icy.
He wore a tailored gray Ermenegildo Zegna suit, looking every inch the man of the hour, but his posture betrayed him; shoulders hunched, fingers twitching at the edge of his desk.
Vargas glared at him from the screen. Behind the drug lord, the Pacific glittered under the mid-afternoon sun as waves crashed against the cliffs below in rhythmic bursts that echoed through the airy villa perched high above the Salvadoran coast. The studio-grade webcam, rigged to track movement, followed him as he paced, shirt open, cigar unlit.
His home office walls were lined with polished rosewood, gold-framed oil paintings.
“You’ve lost control of your DA girlfriend,” Vargas snapped, voice sharp with contempt. Despite the satellite bounce and the heavy encryption software running on both ends of the connection, Vargas’s image was in high fidelity, which only made things worse. “Why hasn’t this assassin been caught?”
Matheson cleared his throat. “I assure you, no stone is being left unturned in the search for Chris Walker.”
Vargas stopped pacing and glared into the camera.
“I don’t want stones turned over, I want him dead!”
Matheson continued carefully. “Ever since Irene pushed the cartel narrative, she’s been at arm’s length from the FBI, but they’ve assured her they’re working on it. Killing an industry executive like this is beyond the pale. They will find him.”
Vargas turned, the camera tracking his movement.
“You lost your ace deputy. I lost an entire factory!”
Before Matheson could respond, a shriek pierced Vargas’s home office.
Matheson watched the scene unfolding fifteen hundred miles to the south as Vargas’s daughter, no older than four, burst into the room, mid-tantrum.
His wife, twenty years younger, stunning in a silk robe, snapped something in rapid Spanish.
A nanny followed. It took Vargas thirty seconds to corral all three of them and send them out of his office.
“?Ya basta!” he barked as he shut the door with a sharp snap.
As the tantrum behind him fell into muffled silence, Vargas returned to the camera, smoothing his shirt and compartmentalizing the domestic chaos. His face was taut, eyes glowing with restrained fury.
“How the hell are you going to get control of this?”
Matheson hesitated. “I’ll talk to Irene again. But it might not work. She’s under pressure. It might be better to—”
Vargas’s voice cut through Matheson’s like a machete. “To what? Give that bitch more money? She’s taken in five million already. She’s running for governor, not president. At least for now.”
Matheson swallowed. “I wasn’t talking about money. We could build a narrative around competitors coming after me because they hate the fact that Xylaxyn will eliminate the need for fentanyl-based products.”
Vargas stared at him, then shook his head slowly.
“You aren’t only a pharma CEO, Derek. You’re a drug dealer. You don’t invite wolves to investigate your sheep.”
Matheson blinked, rattled.
“You don’t have Kimbel to hide behind anymore. That means you have to deal with all these nasty little bits of your business that deliver profits. Your job is Icy.”
Vargas reached for the remote, his hand steady.
“Make that bitch earn her money!”
The screen went black.