“My name? Why would she do that?” She’d known Madison hated her, but the extent hit her squarely. Madison had tried to implicate her in… “What am I being accused of?”
“Nothing,” Hutch said quickly. “They know you had nothing to do with this.”
“Then why would you be worried I could be prosecuted?” His story didn’t make sense to her.
“It’s a leverage tool,” Chris admitted. “One the feds use a lot. Even if they know you don’t have a level of culpability that would make prosecution reasonable, they will use the threat to gain your cooperation.”
Noelle turned to Cara. “Is that what you were going to do?”
“If I had to.” Cara sent Chris a frown. “It’s not like the cops don’t use it, too.”
“I cut a deal with them.” Hutch broke into the conversation. “That’s what I was doing this morning. I was ensuring that they don’t have any leverage over you.”
“But you didn’t even ask me if I wanted you to do that,” Noelle shot back.
Hutch’s eyes narrowed. “Of course you did.”
“Hutch, what did you trade for my safety? Shouldn’t I have had a say in that?” She understood that he might have thought he was doing what was best for her, but he’d made a life-changing choice without giving her any input.
Hutch stared back at her, not giving an inch. “I traded the information they need to prove that Genedyne is involved in fraud.”
“Apparently he also caught a third party.” Big Tag was studying her. “Hutch wasn’t the one who used your keycard, and he definitely wasn’t the one who called the police. The woman who was in the server room with Hutch downloaded your research.”
“Why would she do that?” She was starting to feel queasy.
“I don’t know,” Tag continued. “Why would Jessica Layne meet with representatives from three of the biggest natural gas companies in the world this evening?”
That information stopped Noelle in her tracks. “Why would natural gas companies want to invest in my technology? Helium is often found when they drill for natural gas. Helium is something they sell, and it would be in their best interest to keep the prices high. Maybe she was meeting with them for another reason.”
“Then why would she have gotten rid of me?” Kyle asked that question. “She made a last-minute decision to take that meeting, and when she did, she ensured I wasn’t there, even standing outside the restaurant because she knew I would talk to you about it. Damn it. She’s selling your research to keep it from being used. That’s the fraud.”
“That explains why Madison’s research files were empty.” Hutch placed a thumb drive on the table. “These are some financial records that hopefully prove another one of Jessica Layne’s scams. She’s finding investors for Genedyne by sending them fraudulent research. She’s taking everyone’s reports and making the numbers look better than they really are.”
“I haven’t given her my numbers,” Noelle replied.
Cara slid that folder across the table. “Then why did she print out this report earlier today? This is what she did to Madison. This is what she did to her original partner, too. Madison was working on a cancer project. Shortly before she died, Jessica Layne met with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world.”
God, could this be true? “Madison told me her research was going to change the world. But she was working on a biochemical solution to pollution.”
“And sometimes the greatest breakthroughs are made by accident,” Cara pointed out. “What Madison discovered was that the bacteria she manipulated to basically eat pollution, ate tumors as well. She hadn’t even started real experiments on it yet, but she had high hopes that it could potentially lead to a breakthrough.”
“But that could be worth a lot of money. Why would Jessica squash that research?” Her brain was racing with the implications.
“Because Genedyne is a house of cards,” Chris explained. “She’s running it like a multi-level marketing scheme. She pays investors and her legal team by bringing in new investors and selling promising research to people who would like that research to never reach the marketplace. From what Hutch has given us, we believe that she sold Madison’s research to that pharmaceutical consortium for fifty million dollars.”
“She’s selling my research and getting rid of me. She killed Madison.” That truth felt like a kick in the gut.
“Good.” Tag sat up straighter. “We’re all on the same page now. In light of this new information, can we all agree Noelle is potentially in physical danger?”
“Why have her arrested?” MaeBe spoke up. “What was our spy doing there? She said she was meeting with Sidirov, so I would bet she’s not working for Jessica Layne.”
“No, she’s working as a corporate spy, trying to get the real research. If they have the pure data, they can prove Layne’s lying about how far along the research is and knock the price down in exchange for not talking about it,” Hutch surmised. “Someone in the corporate world caught on to her shakedown. They had you arrested to create chaos and to discredit you in case they decide not to pay at all.”