Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(134)
“What’s bench research?”
“In this case, I think it means he was using animals before he could use humans. This ocular implant could be a game changer for people who have been born blind, and this guy, Dr. Branson, was let go from Caravel last year. Research and development money in his department was cut back.”
“When last year?”
“May.”
That caught my interest. Caleb had cashed in his stocks in April.
Quinn continued. “This is the strange part: Dr. Branson received a bunch of money right after he was let go—I mean, he received funding the very next day—to continue the research.”
“That is strange. Where is he? Is he still in Boston?” Maybe I could stop by his research facility and take a look around.
“No. He’s no longer in the US. He was set up with a laboratory and clinical facility in St. Kitts.”
I searched my mediocre knowledge of world geography and came up empty. “Where is that?”
“It’s a Caribbean island. Janie thinks it makes sense for Dr. Branson to move his research to a small Caribbean island if he was having trouble getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Janie says these small islands usually don’t have the same ‘ethical treatment of human subjects’ requirements that the US and other developed nations have.”
“You’re saying this Dr. Branson moved to a poor country so he could do research on poor people without having to worry about the FDA stopping him?”
Quinn sighed. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“This is some Dr. Frankenstein shit. So, where did Dr. Branson get the money? I mean, he’d need a lot of money, right?”
“Matt doesn’t know. Yet.”
“Matt can ask though, right? Is he close with Dr. Frankenstein?” I didn’t know how I wanted Quinn to answer this question. On the one hand, if Matt was close with Dr. Frankenstein, I would need to rethink my approval of his relationship with Marie. Marie was good people. She was the best people. She deserved the best kind of person. Exploiting poor people to circumvent the law wasn’t cool.
On the other hand, if Matt wasn’t close with the guy, then we might not get any answers out of him.
“Matt said he’d ask, but that he and Dr. Branson never got along. He said the guy was always doing everything for the wrong reasons.”
“Wrong reasons?”
“Money. Fame. Power.”
I grunted. “Sounds like Caleb.”
“So, that’s it. We have people on Caleb Tyson, watching his movements since you asked for the tail last Thursday, but so far nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What’s out of the ordinary for a guy like that? Drinking O negative virgin blood instead of B positive?”
Quinn made a small sound, like a laugh. “So far he’s gone home, to work, to a few nice restaurants, to the marina in Duxbury. That’s it. Alex is running communications surveillance. So far, nothing interesting.”
By “communications surveillance,” Quinn meant Alex had tapped his phone, hacked his computers and email.
The sound of the penthouse door opening had me halting the treadmill and stepping off. “Oh shit, my mom’s back. I gotta go.” I strained to listen for her footsteps and whispered, “Message me if Caleb does anything I need to know about or if Seamus resurfaces.”
Not waiting for his response, I hung up, walking as quietly as I could to the big chair by the window.
And yes, I know I’m a thirty-something guy who is afraid of his mom’s wrath. In my humble opinion, I believe that means she raised me right. Even as an adult, and speaking in general terms, if you’re not just a little bit afraid of letting down one or both of your parents, then you must’ve had shitty parents.
I’m not talking about paralyzing fear—paralyzing fear also means shitty parents—I’m talking about a sliver of worry, a shard of concern. Take my parents, for example. I couldn’t care less what my pop thought. He was a shitty parent.
But my ma? That woman had my respect.
Picking up the book I’d left on the side table, What If? by Randall Munroe, I snuck a glance out the window at the park before I pretended that I’d been reading the whole time she’d been gone. The guy I’d been watching earlier wasn’t there, but clearly my obsessive paranoia was still alive and kicking.
I needed to get it under control, and I would. This wasn’t my first concussion, I knew what to expect. I’d be agitated, moody, and paranoid for a few days. Then I’d be much better at the end of a week. By one month, I’d be completely back to normal.
A soft knock sounded and the door slowly swung open. I braced myself for my ma, for her fussing and kissing and cod liver oil, which she believed cured everything but really just gave me the burps. Like I said, she felt guilty.