Page 44 of I’ll Be Watching You

Georgia’s eyes darted to Luisa, then back to me. “I only worked for Devin for a year,” she said. “Six months before he was killed, he recommended several of his patients for a Phase 1 trial for a possible PTSD medication. He said the proposal was sound, and he had some patients who hadn’t improved through traditional therapies, both one-on-one and drug therapy. One of his patients had a severe reaction to the new drug. This isn’t uncommon, but because it was a small trial, the severity of the side effect could have killed the entire project. Another patient committed suicide two months in. There was no reason to believe the drug caused the suicide, but it’s something that is supposed to be reported in the data, and Devin was positive the drug had something to do with her spiral down.

“When the trial came out he heard that it was approved for Phase 2,” Georgia continued. “He was shocked because he knew two of the fifty patients had possible serious side effects, including death. Another patient on the trial died in an accident. Even accidental deaths are supposed to be reported in the appendix. You have to account for every person who received the drug.”

I didn’t know where this was going. “So they approved it even with all these potential bad side effects?” I said.

“Yes, but it’s worse than even that sounds.”

“It sounds pretty bad to me,” I mumbled.

“The data was gone. When Devin looked at the records and what was reported to regulators, he noted that ten patients were removed from the trial. There was no mention of them in any of the documentation.”

“Do you remember the patients?” When she hesitated, I said, “Screw patient confidentiality. I won’t tell anyone you gave me their names, but I need to talk to them. I can’t talk to the dead, but I can find the person who had a bad side effect.”

“That was Jim Novak,” she said after a brief moment. “He was having a really difficult time after he left military service, physically and mentally. Christina Aberdeen killed herself. She drove her car off a cliff, it was ruled intentional. Devin took her death personally. He’d been seeing her for a year, as a psychiatrist, and suggested the trial.”

“The information should be in the VA medical records,” Luisa said.

“Liz noticed that a record had been altered,” I said. “Maybe that’s what was altered.”

“Very easy to do,” Georgia said.

“How?” Luisa asked.

“Delete the encounter and it’s gone. There might be residual notes, but if they’re good they can go in and get rid of those. Some fields can be deleted by a nurse or doctor, other fields can only be deleted by someone in medical records.”

Luisa typed into her phone and asked, “Who ran the trial?”

“Willa Blankenship,” Georgia said. “She worked for a small company called Neurovantix, which was affiliated with a larger pharmaceutical company. I don’t think I ever knew which one. When Devin confronted her—on the phone, because the trial was over and she had already left Phoenix—she promised to look into it. A week later he was dead. The trial results had already been published, and Neurovantix had moved to larger Phase 2 trials.”

“Could Willa have killed him?” I asked.

Georgia shook her head, then shrugged. “I suppose she could have come back. I don’t remember where she was from. She was only here during the six-month trial. This whole thing has been bizarre. And why would Dr. Cooper confess if he had any idea of who had done it?”

“Why would he confess to a murder he didn’t commit, you mean?” I said.

“Your mom said that he was threatened.”

The teakettle whistled and Georgia jumped, her elbow hitting a cup full of pens on the counter. She caught them before they fell to the floor.

If I had Willa Blankenship’s name three years ago, I could have tracked her down. Even if I had her name eight months ago when I talked to Georgia, I would have had a direction to look for answers. Instead, she’d sent me on a wild-goose chase about Nadine. Again, I was about to ask about Nadine, when Luisa asked, “Who else had access to the trial?”

“Plenty of people,” Georgia said as she stepped into the kitchen and poured hot water over her tea bag. “The head of our VA research lab was excited about the trial and what it would mean to our program. Neurovantix brought in an entire outside team. At least six or seven people besides Willa would’ve had access to most if not all of the data.”

Luisa glanced up as Georgia sat back down, her hands wrapped around her large mug. “And Devin had access?”

“No, I mean, I suppose he could have, I wasn’t involved directly in the trial. He only became concerned after he saw the final Phase 1 report and realized several of his patients were missing.”

“And how was the trial structured?”

Georgia exhaled, then said, “Fifty veterans recruited for PTSD treatment. The reports filed said forty. That was the first red flag. The trial lasted six months. When the reports were uploaded to the clinical trials website, as required, the data didn’t have the patient listed who committed suicide. It wouldn’t have her name, but at a minimum, the footnotes state the number of patients that didn’t complete the trial and why, including death.”

“And then Devin was killed.”

Georgia nodded.

Before Luisa had another question—even though they were good—I needed to know about Nadine. “You sent me on a wild-good chase for a ‘Nadine’ and implied she was related to Klein, but she’s not. Yet a Nadine Pierce visited my dad three weeks ago.”

Georgia didn’t respond.