Lee got Karen on the phone while she and Josh were out doing some shopping. She invited Lee to join them for a bite to eat. He could not remember the last time the three of them had dined together, settled on too long, and decided the idea was a good one. Rather than launch into a long explanation of all he had discovered on the phone, Lee thought they could brainstorm an action plan over dinner. They would meet at Olivio’s, an Italian restaurant they had frequented when Josh was young.
A maître d’ escorted Lee over to a table where Karen and Josh were seated with drinks already served.
“Thanks for including me,” Lee said to Karen, taking a seat. The restaurant, dimly lit and well appointed, was not particularly crowded at 5:30 in the afternoon. The waiter approached and took their orders. Josh settled on the fish, but only after some internal debate. Lee ordered a glass of red wine and opted for the eggplant special, while Karen went for the chicken. If he had to guess each person’s order beforehand, Lee would have been right on all three counts (including Josh’s hemming and hawing). He knew their personalities, had their habits and tastes ingrained.
This was his family. Fractured and small as it was, it brought him great joy to be in their company. His parents were gone, his sister an infrequent visitor, but Karen and Josh were constants in Lee’s life. They were signals that all was right in the world, everything was as it had been and as it should be.
“You got here just in time,” Karen said to Lee, her tone a bit off. “Josh was just telling me that he’s quit his job.” She turned her head so only Lee could see her eyes grow wide as her expression shifted from pleasant to deeply upset.
Yessiree, all was right in Lee’s world.
“I figured Josh should be the one to tell you,” Lee said in his own defense.
“When are you going to tell him that he’s throwing his future away? He has to commit to something, Lee. Anything, really.”
“I committed to Hannah and look how that turned out,” Josh said. The comment was meant in jest, but it was obvious to Lee he still hurt over the breakup.
“Let’s give him some space, Karen,” Lee said. “He’s dealing with enough as it is.”
“What he said,” Josh tossed in.
“Well, I’m glad you waited until just before your father sat down to break the big news.”
Karen shot Lee another hard-eyed stare over the rim of her wineglass as she took a long swallow to chase down the bread she’d been chewing. A waiter brought over Lee’s wine.
“Look, I know it doesn’t seem like I have my act together,” Josh said, trying out a placating tone. “But I don’t need rehab, or cash, or anything like that. I just need to have a nice dinner with two people I love more than anybody else in this world.”
“To that, I propose a toast,” said Lee, hefting his glass of wine. Karen and Josh raised their respective glasses as well. “To family. We might not be together like we once were, but we’ll never be apart.”
They clinked and drank, and the talk turned breezy and easy for a while.
“So, Karen,” Lee said, the tenor of his voice changing to signal a shift in topic. “I think we need to take a careful look at those nootropics Cam is taking.”
“Why’s that?” Karen asked.
Lee gave a little speech, mostly for Josh’s benefit, about this being privileged information not to be shared or discussed with anyone. The consequences could be dire for him, he explained.
Once all were in agreement, Lee launched into a detailed rehash of the conversation he had overheard in the doctor’s lounge; the links he had made to Susie’s symptoms and those of Cam; a connection between Susie and the twins who had also presented with myoclonus; how they had died while Susie miraculously survived; and lastly a connection, at least in two cases (perhaps all four, if the twins attended as well), to the True Potential Institute.
“No wonder you need help,” Karen said at last.
“Typically a cherry-red spot is caused by a genetic defect. But carbon monoxide can produce a cherry-red spot on the macula as well. Given that, I’m thinking why couldn’t some other compound produce a cherry-red spot, something Susie and Cam both had exposure to?”
Lee opened the question to the table. No one had an answer.
“Why can’t it be genetic?” Josh asked.
“Well—if we assume Susie, Cam, and the twins all experienced some type of seizure activity, most likely myoclonic jerks, and if we assume the twins studied music at the TPI, it would be highly unusual, no—make that statistically impossible—for four kids connected to the same place to have the same incredibly unusual metabolic disorder. It has to be something environmental, a compound, something they’ve been exposed to. It’s more like a cancer cluster from contaminated groundwater than a genetic disease.”
“The cherry-red spot is a disease?” Josh asked.
“It’s a sign of a disease,” Lee clarified. “What I want to know is could the cause be something intentional, possibly even malicious?”
“Malicious?” Josh sounded surprised. “What’s the motive for that?” He was always a practical thinker like his mother.
“There’s a big chess tournament coming up,” Karen said. “Cam’s the captain of the U.S. junior squad and Taylor is the alternate. We’ve tossed around the idea that Gleason wanted Cam out so that Taylor can be in.”
“How competitive is this Gleason guy?” Josh sounded incredulous.
“Pathologically so, I’d say,” Karen answered. “I’ve seen him on the tennis court, and I hear he’s just as bad playing contract bridge and golf.”
“As a doctor, I’d say he protects his ego to the detriment of his patient,” Lee added.
“Or, like we’ve discussed, he’s keeping the patient from you,” said Karen.
“Precisely,” Lee answered. “He clearly wants me at more than an arm’s length. The question is why.”
Josh did not appear convinced. “That motive’s pretty weak, if you ask me,” he said. “All that effort just so his kid can play in some chess match?”
“If I told you a mother once hired a hit man to take out her daughter’s rival on the cheer squad you’d have said that’s preposterous too, but it happened. Google Wanda Holloway,” said Lee. He was thinking of the Lifetime movie about the crazed Texas mother he’d seen not too long ago, on one of those dreary evenings when the wine bottle was half empty, his ex-girlfriend left a dull ache in his heart, and regrets about not becoming a surgeon took center stage.
“So explain the connection to Susie and those twins,” Karen said. “Gleason would have no reason to hurt them. They’re musicians, not chess players.”
The only good idea Lee had was to take another drink of wine.
“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “You raise a good point.”
“Maybe Yoshi’s the one administering something experimental on behalf of the nootropics company, and getting paid for it while making his students’ personal information part of that research.”
“Could be,” Lee said. “That’s a stronger motive for sure, and it would explain similar symptoms in other students, but it doesn’t explain why Gleason’s been so cagey with Cam.”
“What’s the next step?” Josh asked.
“I’m sure as heck not going to Ellen without actual proof,” Karen said. “Real, hard, irrefutable proof.”
“Why don’t you get some samples of what Cam’s taking?” Lee suggested. “We could have them tested.”
“It’s a good idea,” Josh said.
“I don’t have access to those,” Karen said, her voice flattening. “What are you proposing? That I break into Gleason’s office and just take them?”
Josh and Lee studied each other before nodding simultaneously. Karen exhaled loudly.
“No,” she said.
“Then we may never know,” Lee said with a shrug.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Karen snapped.
“You didn’t really need a lot of convincing, did you, Mom?”
“No, I guess not,” Karen said softly. “To be honest, I’ve been thinking along those lines myself.”
“A bunch of my army buddies used to take something called modafinil,” Josh said. “They called it the ‘go pill’ because it kept them super alert on patrol. Kind of sounds like these nootropics you’re talking about. I can talk to some of them, see what they can tell me. Might help.”
“It’s a great idea,” said Lee. “These smart drugs seem like your generation’s kind of thing anyway. Whatever you can dig up, I’m sure it will be useful. So, when are you going to get the samples?” Lee directed his question to Karen.
“I might as well go now,” she said. “The clinic should be quiet at this hour.”
“And you?” Josh asked his dad the question, with his eyes focused on his cell phone.
“Soon as we’re finished eating, I’m headed back to the hospital,” Lee said. “I want to check in with Susie, see if she takes ProNeural or some other TPI-supplied nootropic.”
Josh handed Lee his phone to show him an article he’d found—a promotional story about the TPI identifying the Stewart twins as star students at the institute. Lee’s expression darkened as he read the relevant passage.
Josh said, “While you’re at the hospital chatting up Susie, maybe find out if there were rumors swirling around the TPI about the twins’ deaths not being an accident.”