Chapter 3 - RAFAEL’S DAUGHTER
I almost refused.
Then curiosity beat self-preservation.
Rafael looked smaller in a hospital bed.
No private dining room.
No bodyguards looming over white linen.
Just monitors, bruised skin, and a man who had nearly died.
Damon remained near the door.
Rafael said:
“Dr. Hart.”
“Nell.”
“You saved my life.”
“The hospital saved your life.”
“You recognized what they needed to consider.”
I said nothing.
Then:
“How do you know my name?”
Rafael looked toward Damon.
Damon opened a leather folder.
Inside was a photograph of a young woman.
Thirty, maybe.
Dark hair.
Hospital bracelet.
“She was my daughter.”
“Sofia?”
Rafael nodded.
I knew the name.
Not from Rafael.
From Caldera-Kline.
Sofia Corbin had been one of the adverse-event cases I reviewed.
Severe arrhythmia after exposure to a cardiac drug the company insisted was unrelated.
She survived the first event.
Died months later after another cardiac episode.
I remembered arguing that her case should remain in the safety signal.
Caldera-Kline’s consultant wanted it excluded.
Confounding factors.
Insufficient causality.
Too many unknowns.
Rafael said:
“You wrote that her first event should not have been dismissed.”
“How did you get my report?”
“That is complicated.”
“Try.”
After Sofia died, Rafael hired lawyers and investigators.
He obtained internal documents through civil discovery, former employees, and channels I did not ask him to describe.
Some were legitimate.
Some probably were not.
Among them:
My original report.
Before edits.
Before committees turned:
POSSIBLE SAFETY SIGNAL — FURTHER REVIEW REQUIRED
into:
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE OF DRUG ASSOCIATION.
I stared at him.
“You had this?”
“For two years.”
Anger arrived instantly.
“You had evidence that could have helped clear me.”
“Yes.”
“And did nothing?”
“I was trying to understand the whole structure.”
“My career was gone.”
“My daughter was dead.”
“Those are not competing losses.”
Rafael looked away.
That was the first moment I understood he was not going to become the benevolent crime boss who rescued the unfairly disgraced scientist.
He had used information exactly like power.
Hold it.
Trade it.
Wait until it became useful.
“What were you planning to do with it?”
He hesitated.
“Monday morning I was meeting federal attorneys.”
“Why now?”
His face tightened.
“Because I finally found who inside my own organization had been protecting Caldera-Kline.”
My anger cooled.
“Who?”
Before he answered, Damon’s phone rang.
He listened.
Then looked at Rafael.
“Dominic’s missing.”
Rafael closed his eyes.
Dominic Corbin.
His nephew.
May you like
Chief financial officer of Corbin Strategic Holdings.
And one of the six men sitting at the table when Rafael collapsed.
