Chapter 8 - The Research Vivian Tried to Forget
Vivian had not spoken about Project Sable in nine years.
She had joined Ashford Biogenics at twenty-eight, long before she married Thatcher. At the time, she had been a respected immunologist specializing in targeted inflammatory responses.
Project Sable began as a treatment platform.
The goal was to activate specific immune pathways in cancer patients without causing damage to healthy tissue. Early laboratory results were promising.
Then the company rushed into animal trials.
Vivian discovered that one variation of the compound triggered violent systemic inflammation. She recommended shutting down the program.
Her supervisor refused.
Ashford Biogenics had already invested millions of dollars, and executives believed the unstable compound could be modified.
Vivian secretly copied the trial data and brought it to Alistair Ashford, the family patriarch.
Alistair listened.
Within forty-eight hours, he suspended the project and fired three executives.
The dangerous samples were ordered destroyed.
The official records described Project Sable as a failed research initiative.
A month later, Vivian began dating Thatcher.
She had never considered the timing suspicious.
Now she sat in Daniel’s office, staring at the laboratory report.
“Every sample was destroyed.”
“Apparently not,” Daniel said.
“Only six people knew the complete formula.”
“Name them.”
“Me. My supervisor, Dr. Cormac Bell. Two senior chemists. Alistair. And the laboratory director.”
“Dr. Price?”
“No. Dr. Leonard Price was a family physician. He had nothing to do with the research.”
“Could he recreate it?”
“Not without the formula.”
Daniel opened an old company archive.
“Dr. Cormac Bell died seven years ago. One chemist moved to Singapore. The other disappeared after an embezzlement investigation. The laboratory director was Beatrix Vale’s father.”
Vivian looked up.
“August Vale?”
“Yes.”
Vivian remembered him as a quiet man who rarely left the laboratory.
After Project Sable closed, August Vale resigned. Three years later, he died in an apparent boating accident.
“Beatrix knew about the compound through her father.”
“Possibly.”
“But why use it on Sabina?”
“To prove something.”
“What?”
“That the compound still worked.”
The implication was monstrous.
“They used my daughter as a test subject?”
“We don’t know that.”
Vivian stood.
“They gave an experimental immune agent to an eight-year-old child. What else would you call it?”
Daniel allowed her anger to pass before speaking.
“The Halcyon transfer included the abandoned Sable patents.”
Vivian turned.
“Why would Harcourt want failed patents?”
“Harcourt claims he did not know they were included. The schedule was hidden in an appendix added the afternoon of the dinner.”
“By Thatcher?”
“By Beatrix.”
Vivian walked toward the window.
The city moved normally below her. Cars stopped at lights. Pedestrians crossed streets. Somewhere, people were having lunch and complaining about ordinary problems.
Her daughter had nearly died because adults wanted control of a formula that should no longer exist.
“Thatcher married me because of Project Sable,” she said.
Daniel did not answer.
The silence was enough.
“Alistair trusted me. Thatcher needed access to whatever I knew.”
“Alistair also changed his will shortly after your marriage.”
“Why?”
“He never explained the full reason.”
“Sabina wasn’t born yet.”
“No.”
“Then how could he name her primary heir?”
“The will referred to your first biological child.”
Vivian felt a chill.
“My child, not Thatcher’s?”
Daniel opened a copy of the trust language.
The primary generational heir shall be the first living child born to Vivian Mara Ellis, regardless of paternal identity.
Vivian read the sentence three times.
“Why would Alistair write that?”
“There is a sealed letter intended for you.”
“Where?”
“In a private vault controlled by the trust.”
“Open it.”
“I cannot.”
“My daughter was poisoned.”
“The letter becomes available only if three conditions are met.”
“What conditions?”
“Sabina faces deliberate physical harm. Thatcher’s stewardship is challenged. And an individual named in the sealed codicil is confirmed dead.”
“Who?”
“August Vale.”
“He died years ago.”
“His body was never recovered.”
Vivian stared at him.
“You said it was a boating accident.”
“It was presumed.”
“So the letter remains sealed because he might be alive?”
“Yes.”
A memory surfaced.
The night before Sabina became ill, Vivian had looked through the library window and seen Beatrix speaking to a man near the garden gate.
The man had worn a hat and kept his face turned away.
At the time, Vivian assumed he was part of the catering staff.
Now she remembered Beatrix’s posture.
She had not been giving instructions.
She had been listening.
“What did August Vale look like?” Vivian asked.
Daniel searched the archive and displayed an old photograph.
August stood beside a laboratory table. He had gray eyes, a narrow face, and a deep scar near his left ear.
Vivian zoomed in.
Her pulse quickened.
The man at the garden gate had turned his head for only a second.
She had seen a pale line beside his ear.
“I think he was at the manor.”
Daniel’s phone vibrated.
A security alert appeared on the screen.
May you like
Someone had attempted to access Alistair Ashford’s sealed vault using an expired biometric key.
The key belonged to August Vale.
