Chapter 13 - The Ghost of Arthur Miller
"Irene," Bernard croaked, his voice cracking like dry autumn leaves.
I didn't answer him right away.
The corridor felt impossibly long, stretching between us like an uncrossable chasm.
For months, I had seen Bernard as my ally, a father figure who understood the suffocating cruelty of the Langston family.
I had wiped the foam from his lips when Gareth's altered doses nearly stopped his heart.
I had sat by his bedside in the intensive care unit, holding his cold hand when no one else dared to defy Gareth.
And all along, he had carried the ghost of my real father in his pocket.
"Is it true, Bernard?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
Bernard closed his eyes, a deep shudder racking his frail frame.
He didn't offer an excuse.
He didn't wave his hand in dismissive arrogance the way Gareth always did.
A tear slipped down the deep crease of his weathered cheek.
"Arthur was my closest friend," Bernard whispered.
"That is not an answer," I said, walking toward him, each step heavy with betrayal.
"Did you steal his patents?"
"Did you take his life's work while my mother worked twelve-hour shifts at a dry cleaner to buy my insulin?"
"No!" Bernard cried out, the sudden force of his voice echoing off the clinic walls.
He stumbled slightly, clutching his chest.
I instinctively moved forward to steady him, my medical reflexes overriding my fury.
I gripped his elbow, feeling the fragile bone beneath his cashmere sweater.
"Sit down before your blood pressure spikes, Bernard," I ordered sternly.
I guided him into the consultation office, shut the oak door, and locked it.
I poured a glass of cool water from the pitcher and set it on the desk in front of him.
"Talk," I said, leaning against the edge of the mahogany desk.
"And do not omit a single syllable."
Bernard drank the water with trembling hands, setting the crystal glass down with a sharp clink.
"Thirty years ago, Arthur discovered a revolutionary peptide," Bernard began, staring down at his weathered hands.
"It had the potential to reverse microvascular cardiac decay."
"It was worth billions, Irene."
"Arthur didn't want to sell it to big pharma."
"He wanted to distribute it through public trusts, at cost, to municipal hospitals."
"He was a saint, and the corporate world does not tolerate saints."
Bernard looked up at me, his eyes clouded with decades of accumulated guilt.
"Eleanor Langston’s husband, Richard, found out about the preliminary data."
"Richard approached me."
"At that time, my shipping company was on the verge of bankruptcy due to a dock strike."
"Richard told me that if I secured the exclusive rights to Arthur's formula, the Langston Group would inject forty million dollars into my maritime fleet."
"I went to Arthur."
"I begged him to take the corporate buyout."
"He refused."
"He threw me out of his office."
"Two days later, the laboratory fire occurred."
"The police ruled it an electrical accident, but Arthur knew better."
"He called me that night, screaming that the Langstons were going to murder him for the chemical blueprints."
"I thought he was having a paranoid breakdown."
"I ignored his call."
"The next morning, his car was found at the bottom of the Hudson River."
"The coroner said massive myocardial infarction before the crash."
"No autopsy was permitted because Richard Langston had the county coroner on his payroll."
"Richard produced a signed contract showing Arthur had transferred the patents to Langston-Vance Holdings the afternoon before he died."
"I knew the signature was forged, Irene."
"I knew it in my marrow."
"And what did you do, Bernard?" I asked, a bitter taste flooding my mouth.
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"I took the forty million dollars," Bernard wept, burying his face in his hands.
"I took the money, I saved my company, and I kept my mouth shut for thirty years."
