Page 15 of Defending Love
Chapter Fourteen
Eli
T he beach bag.
“I moved it to the living room,” I said as I removed our dinner from the refrigerator.
Dani’s posture relaxed as she came closer. Her wet long hair cascaded over her slender shoulders, and her beautiful face was free of the cosmetics she truly didn’t need. Shapely long legs came from beneath an oversized sweatshirt. Her feet were bare, showing her light-pink toenails.
“Is the air too cool?” I asked.
“No.” She wrapped her arms around her midsection. “I like soft, warm things.”
“I did a sweep upstairs and down. There are no cameras and no audio recording or transmitting devices.”
Her lips curled as her navy-blue eyes met mine. “That’s good to know.”
“I also received a few text messages. Brian, Jack’s nighttime replacement, is with your mother. She’s resting peacefully.”
Dani sighed as she sat at the kitchen table near where I’d set her salad and a bottle of water. Thankfully, Guardian had the refrigerator stocked with water.
“The other text was from Larry. All is quiet in Indianapolis.”
She didn’t respond. Her smile from upstairs was gone.
Handing her silverware, I tilted my head. “Are you having second thoughts about the things from your father’s safe?”
She shook her head as she opened the lid to her salad.
“I started wondering in the shower if it was fair for me to look through the things without Damien.” Her blue eyes looked up.
“He has as much right to know as I do.” Before I could say anything, she added, “He isn’t responsible for what happened, so don’t go there. ”
I lifted my hand before taking the seat to her side with my dinner. “Do you think Darius is—capable?”
Dani prodded the lettuce around with her fork.
“I don’t.” She looked up. “He and Damien have never gotten along.” She pierced a chunk of chicken.
“If I look at the whole situation from Darius’s perspective, I get it.
He was Dad’s first child—first son. Then his parents divorced, and Dad married Mom.
Darius was ten years old when along came Damien.
Darius probably felt like he went from being the heir apparent to being left behind. ”
“Was he left behind?”
“No,” she replied between bites. “When we were young, Darius spent every other weekend with us. Later, Dad gave Darius the chance to run Sinclair Pharmaceuticals, and he failed. It was so bad that Dad almost sold Sinclair.”
I stopped arranging my sandwich. “Sold it? When?”
Dani hummed. “Well, Damien passed his five years of probation around a year ago. It would have been before Dad retired. I’d say maybe six years ago.”
This wasn’t in my research. “Was an official offer made? Who wanted to buy it?”
“I don’t think there was an official offer. Dad was in informal discussions with people from Lilly, an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company.”
“I didn’t see anything about that in my research about Sinclair Pharmaceuticals,” I admitted.
“Again, I don’t think it got that far. Damien brought in Dr. Carpenter. The research and development of Propanolol was underway from a local university. Sinclair secured the rights and from that point, the development was fast-tracked.” She smiled a glowing smile. “The rest is Sinclair history.”
“So your father was going to sell the company and then changed his mind?”
“Damien changed his mind with Propanolol. In the early days of Sinclair, we mostly manufactured sterile saline, what’s used in hospitals.
Then in the 1980s after the Hatch-Waxman Amendments that allowed competition in drug prices, Dad went full throttle into generic insulin.
Too bad we weren’t making the GLP-1 formulas. ”
“The ones used for weight loss?”
Dani nodded. “They are now, but that wasn’t their original objective.
The GLP-1 drugs aren’t new. They’ve been around for a long time for the treatment of diabetes.
They stimulate the body’s insulin, slow down the gastric process, reducing blood-sugar spikes, and decrease the secretion of glucagon, a hormone that raises blood sugar. ”
“They’re all the rage.” I was increasingly interested. Those drugs were on every other commercial or pop-up. “Did the GLP-1s hurt Sinclair’s business?”
She shook her head. “They don’t replace insulin if that’s what you’re asking. If Dad would have sold Sinclair to Eli Lilly, they would have had both the GLP-1s and have a corner on generic insulin.”
“Doesn’t Lilly make insulin?”
“They were the original manufacturer.” She laid down her fork and reached for the water bottle, unscrewing the cap. “You don’t think this has anything to do with what happened to Dad, do you?”
I leaned back against the chair. “I don’t know. Was Damien’s introduction of Propanolol the reason your father didn’t sell?”
“Basically. Dad was afraid Darius would run the family business into the ground. Being a footnote on a larger company was better than going bankrupt. After the promising results with Dr. Carpenter’s research, Dad made a gamble to keep Sinclair Pharmaceuticals going.”
“And Darius?” I asked.
“Damien replaced him. Darius has never forgiven him. He tried to get the position back; that’s why you were hired a year ago.”
I remembered.
“But things have changed. Darius has recently gone into business with Dwain Welsh from Moon Medical. They’re making a mint as snake-oil salesmen.” She shook her head. “Darius had no reason to hurt Dad.”
“Snake oil?”
Dani scoffed. “That’s what Damien calls it. They’re capitalizing on the health-supplement market. That market has fewer regulations. It’s easier to put products out when you have a disclaimer saying that results are not guaranteed and to consult your physician before use.”
Dani’s history lesson ran through my thoughts as I finished my sandwich. “Does that Dr. Carpenter still work for Sinclair?”
“No. He left right after Propanolol was approved for use.”
Her answer caused me to bristle. “Why wouldn’t he stick around to bask in the success?”
Dani sighed as she leaned back. “David…David Carpenter, was great. Even before I finished my PhD, he welcomed me into the lab and shared results with me. I thought it was just him being nice to the owner’s daughter, but I think he truly wanted me to be a real part of the creation. He knew I’d be around after him.”
“What happened?”
“After he retired from Sinclair—with a hearty retirement fund—he died.”
My eyes opened wide. “Died? How? How old was he?”
“He wasn’t old, close to fifty, I believe. His family kept the specifics of his death close to their vests. I suspect David was ill and just didn’t let on. Once his research was finalized, he gave himself permission to move forward.” She shook her head. “He lived and breathed Propanolol.”
I made a mental note to find out what I could about Dr. David Carpenter.
Dani stood and gathered our empty papers and containers, depositing them into a trash can. “I’m ready.”
A very distinctive part of me wanted her to be ready to do what she’d said earlier and discuss other fucking options. However, I knew that wasn’t what she meant.
“Okay, I’ll bring the bag back in here. The kitchen table will be the best place to get a good look at what we found.”
In the living room, I picked up the blue and white striped bag and carried it back to the kitchen. Dani’s expression was blank as I came closer, as if she was unsure how she should feel at this moment.
“What will I tell Damien?”
I placed the bag on a chair between us. “I suppose that depends on what we find.”
Squaring her shoulders, Dani nodded and donned the pair of latex gloves.
I did the same, having retrieved another pair when I was upstairs.
I removed my phone from my pants pocket.
“I’m going to take pictures of everything for our team at Guardian.
Sometimes they see things that can be missed in the moment. ”
Dani nodded and reached into the bag.
Some of the smaller items were the first to come out. She opened a velvet-covered square box. The diamond and emerald necklace inside was probably valued at over a hundred grand.
When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “This belonged to my father’s mother. She left it to Mom, but Mom only wore it once. At Grandma’s funeral.”
“Didn’t your mom like it?”
“There’s more to it.” She inhaled. “In a nutshell, Dad didn’t have a sister, and the story was that originally, the necklace was to go to Sharlene.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “Darius’s mother. According to Damien—I’m not sure how he knew—Sharlene asked for it in the divorce.”
“Had your grandmother passed?”
“No,” she said, aghast. “But she wanted it written in the divorce decree that upon Grandma Sinclair’s death, the necklace went to her.”
“Did you ever meet Sharlene Sinclair?”
“Oh yes.” Dani wrinkled her nose. “She wasn’t the nicest person.”
“Today?”
Dani shrugged. “She went MIA about eight to ten years ago. Weird thing. No one knows where she is, nor have they heard from her.”
“Even Darius?”
“He doesn’t comment about her much. I remember Dad offered to pay a private investigator to find her.
Darius said if she didn’t want to be part of his life, good riddance.
” Dani lowered her voice. “The rumor was that she met someone—someone wealthy, no doubt—and didn’t want to share her newfound bounty with her son. ”
Dani reached for a stack of small journals all tied together with twine. “These are what Dad had in the desk drawer. There were literally hundreds of them.” She pulled on the twine. “Why would anyone steal them?” She opened the one on top.
The aged binding no longer held the pages in place. Carefully, she laid it open on the table. “1968.” Her bright blue eyes stared at me. “Dad was born in 1953. This was probably Grandpa Sinclair’s journal.”
“What does it say?”