“My private life was never up for discussion,” Garrison answered smoothly. “And I’m sure that isn’t why we’re here now is it, Hugo?”
The wrinkle infested man leaned back in his enormous chair, steepling his bony fingers beneath his pointy chin. “No. It isn’t.”
Garrison waited, seemingly patient enough to wait forever if need be.
Hugo appraised Garrison with shrewd, watery eyes before speaking, “We’re here to discuss the future of our partnership. I think I speak for everyone here when I saw we are quite concerned by the disturbing news that has reached us.”
Garrison never so much as flicked an eyelash at the sharp words. “And what news is that?”
“The death of Gabriel Tomas and his family.”
Isaiah stiffened, recognizing the name.
Garrison continued to look perfectly collected, if not a bit annoyed. “From what I understand, Gabriel Tomas was killed in a tragic plane accident. I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”
“That is what I told the detectives as well, but then news of Mortimer Hobbs began to circle around the university. I’m sure you’re aware of the allegations Mr. Hobbs is making against you?”
“I am aware,” Garrison said evenly. “But that is what they are, allegations. I wouldn’t put any stock in what Mortimer Hobbs has to say. The man is raving mad.”
Hugo arched a white brow. “The university seems to be taking him quite seriously. They cancelled your seminar, didn’t they? Mr. Hobbs seems to be telling anyone who will listen that you threatened him. That you sent goons to his home to attack him. Is this true?”
Bile roiled in the pit of Isaiah’s stomach. His body broke out in cold sweat. He tried not to fidget, not to look at Garrison with accusation, but the task was becoming impossible.
“If that were true, I don’t think Mortimer would be alive now, and why would I put so much time and energy into such a ridiculous matter? My research takes all of my time. I don’t have time to go around bullying people of non-importance.”
“But are his allegations true, Garrison?” another voice piped up, thin and raspy as old parchment. “Are you experimenting on children?”
“I have never kept what I do a secret,” Garrison said, outrage and offense coloring his tone. “There are those who disagree with my methods, but every child that comes to me has been admitted by their parents who have signed the disclosure. Am I experimenting? With the little knowledge that we have regarding the human mind, yes, I am. I am learning with each patient that comes my way. Is it simple? No, it isn’t, but I take great pride in what I do, which is helping those who cannot help themselves.”
When said like that, even Isaiah was nearly convinced. The board members, if impressed, gave no signs of it. Their haggard faces remained articulately stern.
“We don’t look kindly to the harm of children, Garrison,” a separate voice said, this one female, but sounding very male behind the gruff, smoker rasp. Isaiah searched the group and found the owner, a tiny woman with a head full of steel wool swept tightly in a French twist. Her face was long, squished like someone had placed their hands on either side and pressed together. “That was not part of the agreement.”
“My job is to cure the ill,” Garrison said tightly. “Men. Women. Children. When a parent comes to me, seeking insight on their child’s behavior, do you expect me to turn them away?”
For a moment, no one responded. A low murmur rose through the room, rolling and rippling against the cavernous ceiling.
“We do not dispute your research is invaluable,” the woman said.
“But can you explain this?” Hugo shoved a scrap of paper down the length of the table. It was passed from hand to hand until it reached Garrison, who took it and looked it over with a very neutral expression.
Isaiah wished he could lean in a little more and read the neatly written lines. The entire page was full and it wasn’t until Garrison flipped the first page over that he realized there was more than one and the fine print ran back and front on all pages.
“That’s a handwritten list of methods you use on your patients, written and signed by Mortimer Hobbs himself. He felt he needed to make sure we got that in case something happened to him.” The last part was said with a pointed look in Garrison’s direction.
“Mortimer Hobbs is an instigator and overdramatic,” Garrison muttered offhandedly, still poring over the documents. “If I had known the trouble he would cause, I would have never taken him on.”
“Are you suggesting his allegations are false?” another male voice interrupted.
Garrison dropped the pages down on the table with a hint of disgust. “I am a doctor. I took an oath to save lives. I plan on doing that in whatever manner is at my disposal. I can’t guarantee everyone will agree to my methods, but I have shown results, have I not?”
“What exactly are you doing here, Garrison?” one man said gruffly. “These tests you perform on the patients, what—”
“I’m trying to balance the chemicals in the brain,” Garrison answered seamlessly. “When we are sick, our body needs medication to get better. When our brain is sick, it stands to reason that the brain would need the same. My goal is to find the perfect dosage of medication to eradicate the sickness. This process is tricky because every person’s DNA is different and would require a different dosage. That is what I am trying to do. I am trying to find a hybrid strand of medication to make a person sane again.”
“Is that even possible?” the same gruff voice demanded.
“That,” Garrison said, “is exactly what we’re trying to do here, gentlemen. We are improving the future, saving hundreds of families who have to deal with this tragedy daily.”
“What exactly is the process here?” the woman asked, her voice snide. Isaiah guessed she was reacting to Garrison’s gentlemen comment. “How do you collect the data needed to accomplish such a task?”
Isaiah had never asked these questions and now, hearing the answers, he was both angry with himself for not asking and furious for hearing it now. After everything he’d seen since returning home from the academy, he wasn’t sure he could handle it.
“The collection of samples is different for everyone,” Garrison was saying when Isaiah concentrated again. “I have been collecting partials, mostly blood, if I can part the DNA, compare it with a normal, healthy individual, I’m confident that I can find what strand puts the disease in the patient to begin with.”
The murmurs started again, louder this time, but still a low buzz that was impossible to decipher.
It was Hugo that spoke up, drawing all attention with a single cough. “Be that as it may!” his voice broke over the chatter. “We cannot have Bio Corp associated with these medieval torture methods. A very large portion of that list is outdated, banned even. We will not stand by such barbarism. Only a madman would even consider such cruelties as justifiable! Our vote was unanimous, Garrison. Please consider this as the termination of our agreement. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the paperwork and sent it to your office. For the time being, Howard and Isaac will escort you out of the building.”
The pair shouldn’t have surprised him. After all, someone must have opened the door for them initially. What surprised Isaiah was that he hadn’t noticed them standing on either side of the open door until Hugo waved in their direction.
“This is an outrage!” Garrison exclaimed, showing the first real sign of emotion. “We have been partners for years, Hugo! I have given everything to this company! I helped you build it. Without my support—”
Hugo raised a hand, stopping Garrison’s rant. “This is no longer up for debate, Terrell. We have heard your side of the story and have decided. Don’t make this personal.”
Garrison’s green eyes all but bulged from their sockets. “Not personal? I have dedicated my life to the cure of the human ailment. I have spent countless hours breaking through impossible heights. This has been my whole life! How can you say that’s not personal? No, I’
ll go,” he said when Hugo motioned Howard and Isaac forward. Isaiah positioned himself between the two hulking men and Garrison, hands bunched at his sides. “But this isn’t over, Hugo. I will prove to you just what a mistake you’ve made here today and you will be sorry.”
Turning on his heels with a flourish, Garrison stalked towards the door. Isaiah cast a snarl at the two watching him with twin expressions of amusement. He shoved his way between them, ignoring the pain in his shoulders as he followed Garrison out the door.
Neither spoke as they rode down to the main floor. There was still silence as they crossed the foyer to the front doors. Garrison didn’t say a word until they were seated in the limo and were tearing down the streets towards home.
“How dare they,” he snarled, staring unseeingly at the blur of buildings outside the window. “How dare they humiliate me that way? How dare they discard everything I’ve done to build that company? Hugo Jacobs would have nothing without me. He would still be in the mailroom of some deflating office building asking big shots if they want sugar in their coffee. Before me, he was nothing! I made him, just like I made Hobbs and Tomas and…Abigail.” The muscle in his jaw jumped. The hands resting on his thighs curled into fists. “Ungrateful, repugnant swine! Who do they think they are, betraying me! I’ll show them. I will make every one of them pay for this!” He turned blazing eyes towards Isaiah, pinning him to the leather seat. “I never told them the break through I’ve made. With you by my side, Isaiah, nothing will stop us. It’s only a matter of time and then they’ll see. I’ll watch every one of them suffer with great pleasure!”
Chapter 28
Amalie
Where is he? Amalie paced from the terrace to the door and back, fingers knotting anxiously at her abdomen. Her gaze flickered to the ink spill blotting out the blue that had stretched the heavens only hours earlier. It was getting so late.
“May I ask you something?”
Startled, having forgotten the man next to the door, Amalie jumped. She spun around, eyes wide in fright. If Derek noticed her panic, he made no comment of it.
“Oh,” she squeaked. “Yes, of course.”
“Please forgive me if this is personal, but where is your mother?”
Amalie ceased moving. Her breathing stopped. Only one other person had ever asked her that and she couldn’t tell him. Talking about the woman that had essentially abandoned her in hell always left her feeling hollow and numb. Isaiah had understood, had never asked again, but a part of her had always wished he would.
“She’s dead,” Amalie whispered to her tangled fingers.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. “How did she die?”
Amalie swallowed hard. “She killed herself.”
Derek’s eyes widened, the surprise rising up inside her reflecting in his silver eyes. “How old were you?”
“Six. She hung herself in the cellar.”
He sucked in a breath.
She remembered that day as if it were yesterday. She remembered the cold draft in the cellar, the equally icy feel of her mother’s bony fingers as she was led deep into the dark quarters. Her mother’s soft soothing reassurance filled her ears as they entered the room with the crates, the one that no longer existed, the one her father boarded up after the incident. She remembered her mother telling her to sit while she dragged a crate over, all the while telling her a story about what a wonderful life Amalie was going to have. She watched as her mother looped the bed sheet she’d brought along over the rafter. Then her mother looked at her, gaunt face glistening with tears as she whispered that everything would be all right.
“Father says she was crazy,” she said quietly, jerking out of that memory. “Like me. That’s why he keeps me here. He’s trying to protect me.” It sounded like a lie even to her ears.
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Derek said with just a hint of sadness and truth that touched her.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “But I am. You just haven’t seen it.”
He chuckled. It was the first time she’d ever heard the sound coming from him. It was a nice sound. She didn’t tell him so.
“Don’t you ever get tired of sitting there?” she asked him, indicating to the chair.
He shrugged. “Not really. I think I prefer this than having to patrol the grounds with the others. It’s getting cold out there.”
Amalie glanced out the window. From her location at the back of the house, she had no view other than the ocean. Her balcony hovered over the roaring oceans below. She could never really tell which season they were in unless she glanced at a calendar, or if it snowed.
“Where is your family?” she asked him, knowing it was unexpected, but curious about the man that practically lived in her bedroom.
Derek, if surprised, didn’t show it. “Alberta,” he answered simply.
Amalie had to pull up a mental picture of the Canadian map. “You’re quite far from home.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“They must miss you.”
He said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, realizing how rude that sounded.
He sighed. “No. I’m sorry. It’s not fair to ask you to share your life with me when I don’t return the favor. I miss them sometimes, but after my sister’s death, my parents just aren’t the same.”
Amalie wondered if the feeling of loss was the same for a mother and father to lose a child as it was for a child to lose a mother. She wondered if she missed her mother. She knew sometimes she did, but the anger refused to be forgiving.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” she murmured, meaning it. “Tell me about her?”
Derek hesitated. “She was your age,” he murmured, staring at her, but she knew he wasn’t seeing her. “She had long curly blonde hair and gray eyes. She was small, but had a laugh that always seemed much too big for her. She was deathly afraid of birds. She always thought they would group together and come after her.” He chuckled, the sound choked. “She was kind and generous and…” He trailed off. “She died too young.”
Amalie said nothing, too afraid the tears would fall if she opened her mouth. Thankfully, she was saved from having to respond when the door opened and…
“Isaiah!”
He hurried inside, shutting the door behind him as though escaping a band of pirates. He leaned into the hard surface, scrubbing a hand over his face and back into his hair.
Amalie rushed to him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I…” he trailed off, noticing Derek. The panicked expression vanished. He was frowning. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Nope.”
Still scowling, Isaiah took Amalie’s hand and dragged her across the room to the terrace doors. He turned her so her back was curved into his chest and his lips were at her ear.
“I have to get you out of here.”
Amalie frowned, tipping her face up. “What happened?”
“Your father is crazy!”
“Isaiah!” She gasped, outraged and horrified by the statement.
Isaiah shook his head, face solemn. “I’m not making that up, Ams. He’s lost it. You’re not safe here anymore.”
Anymore? When was she ever?
“But how—”
He touched her arm. “Leave it to me. I’ll find a way. Just don’t tell…him!” He jerked a head over his shoulder towards Derek. “I don’t trust him. He still works for your father.”
She understood his paranoia. After all, hadn’t she had the same fear not too long ago?
“Are you sure about this, Isaiah?”
He nodded. “Very.”
They didn’t talk about it anymore that night. Isaiah made a show of leaving her room, only to slip back in when Derek had left. She didn’t let him sleep in the chair again. Instead, he crawled into bed with her, pulling her into his arms and blanketing her in hope.
“I love you,” he whispered into her ear.
A smile tugged on her
lips. “I love you, too.”
***
Isaiah never told her what his plans were for their great escape. For the next several weeks that passed, he rarely spoke while his mind was miles way. He stared off into space, his brows furrowed. He would start when she spoke to him as if coming out of a dream. He would blink and mumble an apology. She didn’t blame him. He had so much on his mind. When he wasn’t thinking of ways to get them out of there, he was with her father, running errands and going on missions that made her heart want to shrivel up and die in fear. Isaiah stopped telling her about them, which was both a disappointment and a relief.
Touching Eternity (Touch Series 1.5) Page 26
