Her husband disinherited her entire medical legacy, then she found a secret journal entry warning her about her own sister.
I waited until Marcus Albright’s colleague left the lab. Then, I stepped out of Elias’s office, letting the faint scent of his pipe tobacco follow me. Albright was hunched over a microscope, his shoulders slumped, looking years older than I remembered.
“Dr. Albright?” I said softly, my voice cutting through the lab’s hum.
He flinched, startled, almost dropping a slide. He turned, his eyes wide, then narrowed in recognition. “Clara Bellwether. What are you doing here?” His tone was wary, almost hostile.
“I was collecting some of Elias’s things,” I replied, holding up a small box of his old pens. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. About Genevieve. About the XyloCure trial.”
He stiffened, his jaw tightening. “That’s ancient history. And frankly, none of your business.” He turned back to the microscope, dismissing me.
I walked closer, stopping a few feet behind him. “Elias kept meticulous records, Marcus. Not just in official files.” I paused, letting my words hang in the air. “He made notes. Coded notes.”
Albright slowly turned back, a flicker of fear in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been deciphering his private journal,” I explained, pulling out a small printout of the entry I’d decoded—the one detailing Genevieve’s attempt to divert funds from the metabolic marker patent. I handed it to him. “Elias called it ‘Genevieve’s shadow venture.’ He documented her method of falsifying grants, creating shell companies to siphon funds. Sound familiar?”
Albright stared at the paper, his face draining of color. His hands trembled as he held the printout. He looked at the coded symbols, then back at me, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. “He… he knew,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.
“He knew you were manipulated during the XyloCure trial too, Marcus,” I said, my voice gentle but firm. “He saw her pattern. He saw her willingness to corrupt data, to cut corners for profit. He saw what she did to you.”
Tears welled in Albright’s eyes. He ran a hand over his face, scrubbing at the moisture. “God, I just… I was so stupid. So naive. She was so charismatic, so convincing. We were together, then. She said it was ‘minor adjustments for the greater good.’ Said we’d be heroes. And when it all fell apart, she blamed me. Made me look like the incompetent one.”
He slumped onto a stool. “She made me sign things. Lawyers. Arthur Jenkins. He was her guy, even then. He drew up all the paperwork for that XyloCure trial, the ‘adjusted’ consent forms. Then, years later, when Elias was developing the neuro-regenerative patent, she came to me again.”
My blood ran cold. “What did she want?”
“Elias had this preliminary licensing agreement, just a placeholder, really,” Albright explained, looking agitated. “A basic framework for future research. Genevieve pressured me to co-sign it, saying it was ‘standard procedure.’ Said Elias was too busy with patients, needed help with the administrative burden. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t standard at all.”
He buried his face in his hands. “She wanted me to witness a crucial amendment to that document. A small clause she’d slipped in. It essentially gave her primary oversight, almost a co-ownership, of the early-stage patent rights. I pushed back. Said it looked shady. She swore it was ‘Elias’s wish for collaborative management.’ She charmed me, threatened me. I was desperate for her approval, professionally and personally. I signed it.”
“You believe it was fabricated?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
He nodded miserably. “I’m almost certain. The wording, the timing. Elias would never have agreed to that. Not with Genevieve. He valued his autonomy and ethical control too much. She must have drafted it, or had Jenkins draft it, then made me a co-signatory. I had no idea what I was truly doing at the time.” He looked up, his eyes pleading. “I tried to forget about it. It was another thing she made me do, another thing that made me feel dirty.”
“Do you have any proof?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “Emails? Anything from Jenkins?”
Albright hesitated, looking around the lab as if afraid someone might overhear. “I… I do. I couldn’t bring myself to delete it all. It was my dirty secret, my proof that she wasn’t who she claimed to be, even if I never had the courage to use it.” He got up, walked to a locked metal drawer, and fumbled with a small key on his keychain.
He pulled out a plain, unbranded thumb drive and a folded piece of paper. “These are old. Encrypted. But I kept them. Emails between Genevieve and me, discussing that amendment, her ‘requests’ for my signature. And this.” He handed me the paper. “It’s a sworn affidavit. Undated. I wrote it years ago, detailing everything she made me do, including the XyloCure data, and that patent amendment. I always thought… one day, I’d need it. Or someone else would.”
My hands closed around the thumb drive and the affidavit. This was it. Concrete evidence, not just Elias’s cryptic warnings. This was the link, the human confession, that connected Genevieve’s long history of ethical breaches directly to her current attempt to seize Elias’s neuro-regenerative patent. And the name, Arthur Jenkins, the corrupt estate lawyer, echoed in my mind. He wasn’t just working with Genevieve now; he’d been her enabler for years.
“Thank you, Marcus,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “This means everything.”
He simply nodded, his eyes fixed on the distant wall. “Maybe now… maybe I can finally sleep. She ruined my career, Clara. Don’t let her ruin Elias’s legacy, or yours.”
I knew I wouldn’t. Elias had ensured it. And now, with Marcus Albright’s reluctant, guilt-ridden intervention, I had the evidence I needed to truly understand the depth of Elias’s foresight and the cunning of my own sister. The next step was clear: find out what else Elias had hidden, knowing Genevieve’s methods and her corrupt legal accomplice.
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