“Oh, I’m one hundred percent red, white, and blue,” he said. “I work for a division of our government interested in some of Dr. Walsh’s former colleagues. You remember a woman named Hope McDonald?”
The name sent a chill down his spine. He’d met her at a few conferences, but one night he’d talked to her at the bar. She’d flirted with him and he’d been under no illusions that the woman was interested in anything but the Huisman Foundation and his access to it. After a few whiskeys, she’d told him the strangest tale. All nonsense, of course.
No one could steal a person’s memories. No one could erase minds and make slaves of soldiers.
Could they?
“I know her. Knew her. She died a couple of years ago.” Under somewhat mysterious circumstances. He hadn’t looked too deeply into it, had merely been relieved he wouldn’t have to deal with her again.
“Did you know Dr. Walsh worked with her when she was fresh out of med school? She’d written a paper while she was at Johns Hopkins about possibilities for breaking down the plaques in the brain that strangle healthy nerve cells.”
“I’m well aware of how the disease works,” he shot back. “I am also researching new drugs and therapies for dealing with Alzheimer’s.”
“But she’s further along than you are, isn’t she? So much further.” The man’s voice had taken on an oddly sympathetic tone, soothing almost. “You can’t help it. Everyone listens to her. Her ideas aren’t really new.”
“They’re derivative.” He’d always said it. She was standing on the backs of the truly brilliant. Just because she’d solved a few problems shouldn’t make her the darling of the neuro world, but she’d been exactly that for years. She was the shiny new thing they all followed.
“Who would take over her research if she, say, was found to have stolen a million dollars from the foundation? From what I understand, the foundation itself owns the research done here. If she went to jail, Huisman would retain the intellectual property, I assume.”
That was precisely how it would work. “I would take it over.”
He would take it over, and no one had to know they hadn’t been his ideas in the first place. Everyone knew they worked together. He could easily slip into her role, and by the time he was ready to publish, no one would remember she’d ever existed.
“Yes, you would, my friend, and from what I understand, she’s close,” he said as the limo stopped at a red light. “But she knows something is going on and you’re about to get found out. Did you know she asked accounting for the bank statements on the account you took the million out of? I assume it was you. If it wasn’t, please accept my apologies and I’ll drop you off.”
“What do you want from me?”
The man finished off his beer and sat back. “Like I said, we have a mutual interest in Dr. Walsh and her research. She believes she’s found a way to reverse the effects of the proteins that cause Alzheimer’s. Dr. McDonald used many of Walsh’s techniques in her own research, though in a very different way. I believe between Dr. Walsh’s current research and getting my hands on McDonald’s old research, I can find that cure and then I’ll be in a position to help my country in a way no one can imagine.”
The man knew how to ask for the world. Paul was in a corner and he wasn’t sure he could find his way out. “I have no idea where Dr. McDonald’s research is. She’s dead.”
A slow smile crossed the man’s lips, a Cheshire Cat-like grin. “Yes and a few weeks before she died, she sent a box to Rebecca Walsh. Unfortunately, she was getting a divorce at the time and the package went to her husband’s house. By the time I tracked it down, she’d settled in here and it had been delivered to her. It got caught up in customs for a while, but I have every reason to believe she has it. I had someone recently search her apartment and it wasn’t there. I need you to figure out where she would have put it and get it and all of her current research to me. I had another plan in place, but then you fell into my lap. You’re a godsend, Paul. If you can get me what I need, I won’t have to deal with some unsavory characters, if you know what I mean.”
Perhaps the corner wouldn’t be so hard to maneuver out of. He could search her office. He knew the building like the back of his hand. Maybe this didn’t have to be the end. “And I get?”
“You get my aid in achieving your goal,” his own personal Mephistopheles explained. “You’re going about it all wrong and it’s time to up your game, my man. The players have recently changed and you’re going to have to move quickly because there’s nothing these guys love more than riding in like white knights when a lady is concerned. You need help or you’re going to be the one going to jail. It’s your choice. I can help you or find someone else who’s willing to help me.”
“I want proof that my father is sleeping with a spy.” He might come out of this with far more than a department head job. He might come out of it with the whole foundation in his hands.
All he had to do was crush a couple of people.
“You’ll have it,” his new partner said, satisfaction dripping from his tone. “Now let’s talk about how we strengthen the case against Walsh. We have to be careful. She’s made some new friends, and while they’re idealistic morons, they can be deadly when they want to be. The key is to make the narrative work for us.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means it’s time for the real game to begin, Dr. Huisman.” He sat back. “And you should call me Mr. Green.”
The limo rolled on as Mr. Green began to talk.
An hour later, Becca stopped outside the bistro on the ground floor of her building. There was a couch sitting in front of the windows where patrons watched the street as they drank their coffees and teas. The couch was a new addition, and if the moving van was any indication, it wouldn’t be permanent.
Across the street, the pub was already filling up, and in another hour or so, it would be rocking for the rest of the night as university students and the young professionals who lived in the neighborhood blew off steam.
She would be up in her two-bedroom apartment, in the room she’d meant to be a guest room but had somehow morphed into a second office. Even when she wasn’t at work, she was still there somehow.
Should she start early? Talking to her father today hadn’t calmed her the way it normally would. He’d talked about her sister, Emma, and how she was giving the kindergarten teacher fits because she corrected her grammar.
Maybe she should grab a beer and see what the college set looked like these days. She hadn’t partied a ton in college. She’d been far too young. By the time she was old enough to drink she’d been done with medical school, and then she’d married and been very serious about her career.
She was sick of being serious.
A massive white and brown ball of fur sat on a couch in front of the entrance to the bistro and a pretty woman with long brown hair held the leash. She was frowning down at her cell phone. The new chick in 7E. She and her husband had moved in two weeks before.
She’d met the new residents a couple of times. Jax seemed quiet and more interested in his wife than anything else. River was one of those women who glowed in a way Becca didn’t quite understand. They were a mystery to her, but one thing wasn’t. There was one thing about the new couple she totally got.
Becca dropped to one knee and petted that gorgeous dog. “Hey, Buster. How are you, boy?”
The adorable mutt thumped his tail and practically vibrated with excitement. God, she loved dogs. No muss. No fuss. Just unconditional love. Maybe she should skip the dude and get a dog.
Of course, the dog couldn’t take care of her other needs. Maybe she could have both. A dog and a nice male escort on speed dial.
“Hey, Becca.” River glanced down, sliding her phone into her purse. “How are you doing?”