The gentleman who answered the door recognized Vance right away and informed us that Mr. Lambert was waiting for him in the study. We followed him, passing by the portrait of a happy family of four which had already been a lie when it was taken.
Did Lambert even miss his daughter? Or had the loss only affected his plans of gaining clout in specific social circles?
The study was painted in a subtle green and had warm, honey colored wood beams crisscrossing on the ceiling. One wall was built-in bookshelves stacked over cabinets, and a classic fireplace with moldings was centered on the opposite wall.
Lambert sat behind the desk that was angled out from one corner and faced two leather armchairs. When we entered, he pushed up to stand. His smile fell a notch when he saw me. My attendance purposefully hadn’t been mentioned when Vance set up the appointment.
Lambert gestured to the chairs. “Please, have a seat. I’m glad you called, Vance. We didn’t get a chance to talk last night.”
“You were busy,” he offered, like it was the other man’s fault and not his.
Lambert’s smile was superficial. “Yes, well, I’m all yours today. Your brother seems to be warming up to me. We had lunch last—”
Vance lifted a hand to silence him. “We’re not here to talk about that. There won’t be any more discussion about an HBHC’s board seat. That’s no longer on the table.”
It was like he’d just been told water was no longer wet. “Excuse me?”
Vance was relaxed, but still looked powerful and in control. “We’ve come to negotiate.”
Lambert still hadn’t recovered from the first statement, and color flushed to his neck. “Don’t patronize me, kid. I’m not selling you what I have.”
Calling him a kid was meant to diminish, but Vance let it roll right off him. He looked down at his hand and examined his fingers for hangnails because that was more interesting than the irritated man across from us.
This, of course, only made Lambert angrier. His eyes turned dark as coal. “Listen up, you little pissant, I’m not someone you want to mess—”
“Let’s talk about EpiClick.”
The older man’s face contorted with confusion. “What?”
Barlowe Pharmaceuticals was a huge company and had developed hundreds of drugs over the last fifty years, but their crown jewel was an epinephrine rapid delivery system. EpiClick was literally a lifesaver because it was easy to use, even if someone were experiencing a severe anaphylactic reaction.
A sinister smile threatened on Vance’s lips. “Don’t you find it interesting it doesn’t have any competitors?”
Lambert rolled his eyes. He’d been hauled in front of a congressional committee last year and already testified about Barlowe’s dominance in the market. “Seriously? You’re going to waste my time with this? EpiClick has competitors, like AdrenaJex.”
“Their reputation took a serious hit after their recall two years ago, as did their market share.”
He spoke to Vance like a father lecturing an insolent son. “They put out an inferior product. How is that my problem?”
I had to press my lips together to hold back my evil smile. He’d walked right into it.
“Because you absorbed the partner company of AdrenaJex six months before the recall.”
We’d stayed up until three in the morning trying to solve the puzzle from all the emails that were inside the Barlowe folder on the flash drive. It had been a deep rabbit hole to fall down, but at the end, we’d figured it out.
While Barlowe didn’t own AdrenaJex outright, they’d bought a company called Maxlyn that manufactured the drug that went inside the auto-injection device.
“You caused the recall,” Vance announced, “wiping out the competition, and when EpiClick controlled ninety percent of the market, you tripled the price.”
It made me sick just thinking about it. People’s lives depended on this drug, and the manufacturing cost for the entire system was only twenty dollars. But Barlowe’s price had skyrocketed over the last two years and was now north of six hundred for a two-pack dose.
I’d expected Lambert to look guilty, but maybe he wasn’t capable. He barely looked human as he raised an eyebrow. “You’re awfully bold to come into my home and accuse me of something so utterly ridiculous, and to do it when you don’t have even a shred of proof.”
“You sure about that?” Vance fired back.
He hesitated for a microsecond. “You’ve got nothing.”
“Maybe,” Vance agreed. “Perhaps I don’t have an email thread about adjusting the manufacturing process at Maxlyn, or how you were warned it might lead to incorrect dosing, and you signed off on it anyway.”
So, Lambert was human after all. Worry seeped into the edges of his expression. We weren’t bluffing, and now he knew it.
Vance’s shoulders broadened as he straightened in his seat, looking regal and deadly. “As I mentioned, we came here to negotiate.”
The tension in the room climbed, turning more hostile with every breath.