Chapter 8
Trevor's Own Investigation
Meanwhile, Trevor Bates is investigating a string of disappearances linked to Vera Tek's clinical trials. His assignment unexpectedly overlaps with Emma's.
Trevor Bates, a man whose charm was as carefully cultivated as a prize-winning rose, found himself staring at a blank corkboard. The strings, meant to connect a web of missing persons reports, dangled limply, each one a stark, unanswered question. His assignment from Janet Blackwell, the formidable lead anchor whose retirement loomed like a storm cloud on the news studio’s horizon, was to track down the vanishing individuals, a task he’d initially approached with his usual blend of swagger and detached professionalism. He was good at his job, better than most, and certainly better than Emma Cross, that perpetually exasperated assistant with the perpetually high ponytail. He’d seen her around, a blur of focused energy, always on the verge of snapping at someone, usually him. The promotion was as good as his, he’d reasoned, until Janet had thrown him this curveball. Missing persons. Not exactly front-page material, unless these people were important.
He’d started with the fringes, the drifters, the forgotten. But a pattern had begun to emerge, a faint, unsettling hum beneath the surface of the mundane. Each disappearance, stretching back six months, had a single, common thread: involvement in Vera Tek’s groundbreaking clinical trials. The pharmaceutical giant, helmed by the formidable Ava Sterling, was making waves, not just with its innovative treatments but with its uncanny ability to swallow people whole.
His phone buzzed, pulling him from his thoughts. It was Janet. "Anything, Bates?" Her voice was clipped, businesslike.
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