But actually, it was adamned good plan. As long as whoever had been paid off never talked, then noone would ever know. John would get away without ever even seem like hemighthave been involved, and he’d ruin a man who he hatedandhis son in thesame move, just like that.
Plus reclaim his family’s share of thebusiness. I didn’t know how they lost it, but I also didn’t really care. Mileswas innocent in all this.
He believed in thisresearch.
“But Maddi’s getting better,”I said as I thought of her, and what Miles had said about not having to haveher leg amputated anymore. The treatmentwasworking. “One of the kidsin the trial. She’s improving.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Could be thatthere’s some merit to the research, could be that there isn’t. Everyoneresponds differently to all medical treatments, and cancer is especiallyindividual. Miles’ team might have something amazing. But we’ll never know thetruth about this study, because it’s already been tainted.”
“Why not tell Mr. Emersonall this?” I asked. Wasn’t that the obvious solution?
“Because like you said, itlooks like it’s working,” Jimmy said. “And if he knows, he’ll shut the trialdown immediately and all those kids will go back to a regular course oftreatment straight away. There’s only one more round to go. Shouldn’t they havea chance? It’s definitely not doing any harm. I’ve checked.”
“The security breach at thecancer center,” I said, realizing what Jimmy meant. “How did you become a criminalmastermind, exactly? Bypassing security, breaking locks…”
Jimmy sat back in the booth,his posture relaxing a little. Apparently, I was going to listen to him afterall. That was as much as a surprise to me as it seemed to be to him.
“I’m a researcher. One kindof research is a lot like another,” he said. “And none of that stuff is reallycomplicated once you look into it. Electronic locks are crap. Security at thecancer center doesn’t take a whole lot to get past if you’re in a lab coat andyou have an Emerson Medical ID on you.”
“You know you freaked Milesout, don’t you?” I asked, wondering if Jimmy had ever considered that.
Swallowing, Jimmy nodded. “I know. Iknowit can’t have been funfor him, but… I needed to be sure he wasn’t involved. I couldn’t… if he’d beenin on it, I couldn’t have just… exposed him. Not without talking to him first,at least.”
“You still care about him,”I said. That, at least, was easy to believe. I already knew that whateverhappened next, Miles was one of those people who stuck with you. For me, he’dcrawled into my heart the day I met him and now he was there to stay.
He’d always have me to call on,and apparently Jimmy was still ready to fight in his corner.
“Yes. I wouldn’t have gottenhim into trouble.” Jimmy looked down at the table. “I really did love him, youknow.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. I knewexactly what that felt like, and a younger Miles would probably have been evenless likely to accept care and affection.
Like me and Doc, they’d missed theirchance. Jimmy, at least, didn’t seem bitter about it.
“So you broke into his apartment…”
“Because I needed a copy ofhis files. To make sure there wasn’t anything… incriminating in them.”
“The bank statement,” Isaid, mostly to myself. Miles had dismissed it as being something takenaccidentally, but it was starting to sound like Jimmy had known exactly what hewas looking for.
“Just in case he was takingbribes. I looked for a safe, but uh…” he paused to scratch the back of hisneck.
“Knocked the bookcase overin the search.”
“Right.” Jimmy bit his lip. “Youhave to believe me. This was all for Miles. And I know it was wrong, I know,but I couldn’t risk doing it any other way and I wasn’t sure confronting himwouldn’t make it worse. I needed more information before I could decide what todo.”
“You hit Bryant’s officetoo, huh?” I asked. I didn’twantto be impressed with how far he’d gone, but Ikind ofwas, all the same.
“Once I was sure Miles wasn’tinvolved I started looking for other angles.” Jimmy shrugged. “He’s always hadit out for Miles. I don’t like the way he looks at him.”
“Me neither,” I agreed. “Guygives me the creeps.”
“Connecting all the dots waspretty easy. I guess he never expected to get caught.”
“But why shove the filesunder the door like that with a threatening note? Why not justtalkto Miles?”
“I knocked on the door.”Jimmy shrugged. “No answer. Tried my fake key card again, but then thoughtbetter of just… barging in on him. IknowI was freakinghim out, but you can see why I did this, right? I left him the files with allthe weird stuff circled and I didn’t think the note was all that threatening.”
Right. Of course he didn’t.
