That’s when Dougal died. I knew he wanted me to have the company, to continue with his work, but man.” Harm scrubbed the back of his neck. “I was in the military. Mechanical engineer. Built bridges, roads, had a ton of math but never much straight science. Only my uncle, he had a terror of the firm getting sold, falling into the hands of certain pharmaceutical corporations-he wanted it kept in the family, with people who had the same goals, to conquer this cancer thing. Not to just be about profit.”

“So he passed it on to you…” She put a little plate in front of him because that’s what she did-fed people. A few wedges of bread, fresh herbs in a dip for him to dunk, one of the hors d’oeuvres she’d put on in the salon in a bit.

“Yes. Only the will was barely read-I’d just found a place in Cambridge, wasn’t unpacked-when the clinical trials for BROPE, the new drug, disappeared-”

“BROPE?”

“Bright Hope. The guys named it-”

“Okay. Got it. So the drug was stolen?”

“No. The trials were. The data. The proving data. Damn, this is good-” He motioned to his decimated plate. “Anyway, that crisis took place my first week. Then Fiske, our financial guru, comes into my office the next week looking gray and sick. The funds allocated for the last trial disappeared. They exist on paper. There’s no record of anyone unauthorized-or authorized-touching the account. Only the money’s gone. And Fiske is beside himself, worried I’ll accuse him.”

She rolled her eyes. Just like a child, he was holding out the empty plate, begging for more. “But you didn’t?”

“No. There’s no way Fiske did anything wrong. Fiske is good to the bone. Can’t say he’s a twenty-first-century economics man-he was my uncle’s crony in age, old-fashioned in his thinking. But he’d have gone to the wall for Dougal. They were like brothers. But to sum up this cyclone-I’ve got this company that on paper is thriving beyond all anyone’s expectations, with a cure for pancreatic cancer, a real damn cure, on the cusp.