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Betrayal of Genius

By Robin Patchen

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Everything was ruined. 
Jacqueline Beal froze in the doorway of her lab and stared at the wreckage of her life’s work.
She’d known Don was frustrated. After the funeral a month past, red-eyed with grief, veins pulsing in anger, her former partner had threatened legal action. Trouble was, he had no legal leg to stand on. 
Apparently, he’d realized the same thing. 
The lab they’d once shared hadn’t just been searched, it had been destroyed. 
Jacqui stepped deeper into the room. With her toe, she nudged aside an iPad and stepped over the remnants of its shattered screen. A monitor lay on its side, dented as if someone had taken a baseball bat to it. Microscopes, test tubes, and syringes had been tossed everywhere, some smashed to pieces, others just ruined by littered glass. 
CPUs, ripped apart and gutted.
Equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, wrecked.
She sucked in a breath, barely holding back the sob trying to escape, and waited for the nightmare to end. Surely this wasn’t real.
Surely the man who’d been like a grandfather to her hadn’t done this. 
She skirted a metal worktable and bumped into the oscilloscope. Pain exploded in her shin. Ignoring it, she bent to examine the metal box with its lifeless screens. Its back was destroyed, its wires ripped out. She barely resisted an urge to kick the expensive machine and add even more damage. 
Maybe all wasn’t lost yet. 
Careful to avoid further injury, she picked her way across the room until she reached her desk. She and Don had thought, when they first rented the space right after she’d earned her masters from MIT, that they’d eventually build offices. But they’d worked so well together, neither of them had been eager to erect walls between them. Instead, their desks were pushed together so they could see each other. How many times had he sent her an idea over email, then watched her face as she read it? 
How many times had she made a suggestion and seen him process it, intelligent eyes narrowing under his salt-and-pepper hair? 
How many times had they brainstormed solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems across those two desks? 
They’d been a great team. 
No more.
He’d taken a knife to her leather chair, and stuffing peeked out of the slashes. She tamped down a rise of fear at the violent act, kicked debris out of her path, and rolled the chair back to her desk. 
How had it come to this? 
Stomach roiling, hands shaking, she sat and dialed 911. 
Jacqui was in the middle of explaining the carnage to the operator when the door opened, sending fresh adrenaline to her veins. But it was her assistant who stepped in, not her former partner.
Braden Reilly’s jaw dropped. “Holy cow. What in the world?”
She lifted her finger to silence him and turned her focus to the phone call. 
“Police are on their way,” the woman said. “Are you in any immediate danger?” 
“I don’t…” Don was angry, furious, but he wouldn’t hurt her, would he? She gazed at the destruction all around her. The man who’d done this had lost all reason. The man who’d done this—he could do anything. 
No. He’d had a moment of fury, but he was still the same man who’d believed in her and encouraged her, who’d taken a chance on her when she’d graduated, giving her a job well beyond the positions being offered her. 
He needed help, no question, but he was still the same man.
The operator said, “If you believe the perpetrator is there—”
“He’s not here. And my assistant just arrived. I’m not alone.” 
Jacqui answered a few more questions before hanging up. 
Braden seemed to shake off his shock and bent to pick something up off the floor. 
“Don’t touch anything,” Jacqui said. “The police are on their way.”
He crossed to the safe and crouched down to look inside. The door was open, the contents removed. “Did he get it?” Braden’s South Boston accent was always more pronounced when he was upset, and it was thick right now. “Is it over?”
She was still coming to grips with what had happened. Thank God, thank God for the dream He’d given her. She’d woken up the morning after the funeral for Don’s wife with a lingering memory of it—Don taking her device and running, always just out of reach as she tried to follow. She wouldn’t have believed Don could do something like this under any circumstance. But the warning had been so strong, almost palpable. She’d come straight here, gathered the invention and the research she’d done over the course of years, and hidden them. 
Her brownstone had top-notch security, and unlike the lab, Don didn’t have a key. Her research should be safe there, for now. 
“You’re serious?” Braden straightened to face her, eyes wide. “It wasn’t in there?”
“No.”
“Where is it?” He shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t need to know. It’s yours, not his, and certainly not mine. I’m just glad it wasn’t here.”
“It’s all of ours, and I intend to treat it that way.”
“You’re under no obligation—”
“A man is worthy of his wages. You’ve worked very hard for us, and when we sell it, you’ll get a nice bonus—for your loyalty and your hard work. And Don?” She ran a hand through her hair, forgetting the ponytail until it was too late. She yanked out the hair band, gathered her long hair, and put it up again. “Don will be compensated, too, though I’ll be deducting the cost of this”—she gestured at the ruins surrounding her—“from his share.”
“Why would you do that? Do you have a contract?”
“When he sold me his shares, I agreed to give him half the profits from the device. It seemed like the right thing to do, since he was instrumental in its development. We didn’t put it in writing. He knows he can trust me.”
Braden nodded slowly at her words, processing. “Too bad you can no longer trust him.” 
She was glad Braden realized that. He admired Don Burgess, who’d hired him fresh out of college and mentored him until Don’s wife had been diagnosed with cancer. At that point, Don had quit caring about Braden. And Jacqui, and their business. 
He’d quit working. He’d quit contributing to their partnership. And then, he’d quit the partnership altogether, begging Jacqui to buy his shares and swearing he wanted nothing else to do with the company. Because of their high debt, which they’d incurred to buy the equipment that now lay scattered and ruined, she hadn’t had to scrape together too much to buy him out. She’d had the money. Barely. 
She’d promised the shares would be Don’s when he wanted them back. And she’d promised he’d reap the financial benefit of everything they’d built together. 
At the time, he’d sworn he didn’t care. Now that Lola was gone, it seemed Jacqui’s promises weren’t enough for Don. The man she’d once looked up to seemed to have buried his reason along with his wife. 
Braden leaned a hip on Jacqui’s desk. “You’re sure it was him?”
“Who else?” She looked at the ruined space, all the destroyed equipment. “Maybe, if anything had been stolen, I might believe it was a random burglary.” But as far as she could tell, everything was there. Even the most expensive equipment hadn’t been removed. Just smashed. 
“He’s lost in his grief,” Braden said. “No matter what the doctor said, Don never believed Lola would die. He’s looking for someone to blame.” Braden’s voice was low and tender. As young as he was, he could be very insightful. When Don had hired Braden, Jacqui had been skeptical that a twenty-two-year-old fresh out of college could do much but grunt work, but Braden had proved her wrong. 
Tears pricked her eyes. For Lola. For Don and the life he’d lost. 
For the mentor and friend Jacqui and Braden had lost. 
She’d hoped that, after Lola’s passing, Don would grieve, heal, and return to work. Obviously, that couldn’t happen now.
Braden said, “Do you mind if I suggest you go easy—?”
“Easy?” She stood and gestured to the remains of Don’s temper tantrum. “Look around you. This wasn’t just about getting his hands on the research. He destroyed years of work. Not just mine but yours too. He destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.” 
“In his anger and grief,” Braden said. “But he’s a mentor, a friend.”
“This isn’t the work of a friend.”
“I realize that. I just think mercy—”
“Mercy?” Jacqui couldn’t keep her voice from rising. “He doesn’t deserve mercy.”
Braden tilted his head to the side. “If he deserved it, it wouldn’t be mercy.” 
She sighed, not in the mood for a theology lesson. “Mercy isn’t mine to give today. All this equipment is going to need to be repaired or replaced. Our insurer sure isn’t going to be merciful.”
He dipped his head, offering her the point. Not that she’d won anything. There would be no winners in this situation. 
The police arrived, took their statements, and snapped photos. After they left, Jacqui and Braden assessed the wreckage, making a detailed list of all that was destroyed or damaged. From high-tech equipment to old-school Bunsen burners, hardly anything had escaped Don’s fury. 
It was after seven by the time they were finished with the little they could do before the insurance adjuster came by the following day. 
They had worked through the dinner hour, so she ordered takeout, and they ate at her desk, mostly silent. What was there to say? When she was full, she carefully wrapped the second half of her meatball sub and offered it to Braden. “Why don’t you take the rest of this home?”
His eyebrows lifted. “I’ve never known you not to keep your own leftovers. Waste not, want not and all that.”
Her lips twitched in an almost-smile, the first of the horrible day. “Seems the least I can do after all the work you’ve done. And considering what’s going to happen next.”
He took the sandwich and set it aside, his gaze never straying from hers. “What do you mean by that?”
She gestured at their ruined lab. “Obviously, we’re not going to get a lot of work done around here for a while. Until we get a settlement—”
“Are you letting me go?”
“I’ll keep paying you until you get another job.”
“I don’t want another job.”
“Really?” She couldn’t understand why the man wouldn’t want to find a less volatile place to work. Now that they’d finished their biggest project, now that his mentor would definitely not be returning, she figured Braden would jump at the chance to leave. He had to know she’d give him a glowing recommendation. “You don’t have to stay on my account. I’ll find someone else.”
“I want to keep working for you. But you don’t have to pay me. I have some money saved up, and I can always go back and work for my dad for a while.”
She should know what his father did. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew Braden had once told her. She didn’t want to ask.
But he’d worked with her long enough to read her expressions. “He owns an auto body shop.”
“Oh, yeah. I knew that.” Typical. Minute details about the inner workings of silicone chips never left her brain, but important details about the humans in her life sloughed off like dead skin cells. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. It just appeared that way to everyone she met. “Be honest, Braden. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. Now that Don’s not coming back—”
“I love working here. I thought, when Don stepped away…” He didn’t finish the thought, and Jacqui wasn’t surprised.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I know I can be a little intense.”
“I’ve come to appreciate your style.” His words sounded so sincere, she was tempted to believe them. But she knew she wasn’t exactly personable. 
Braden’s eyes narrowed. “You are going to start up again, right?”
“Of course.” She’d been born to do this. No way would she let Don Burgess or anybody else scare her off. “If you want to keep working for me, then I’m going to keep paying you. Those are my terms.”
He laughed. “I don’t think you understand how the negotiating process works.”
She wished she could feel lighthearted enough to offer even a chuckle. “I never was very good at the business end.” That had been Don’s responsibility. So much of what made them successful had been Don’s responsibility. She’d learned enough to keep them afloat for a while, but now she’d have to learn more. Or hire someone. 
Those were problems for another day. 
“Do we have a deal?” she asked.
“If you insist. I’ll be on call when you need me, but I’ll be back in Dorchester with my family. I think they could use an extra set of hands right now anyway.”
“That’ll work.” Her phone rang, and she snatched it up. “Jacqui Beal.”
“Detective Klein.” The police detective had come by earlier that day to investigate. He was an older man with dark skin and pale blue eyes. He had a gentle manner she’d especially appreciated as she worked to process what had happened. “We wanted to let you know we questioned Don Burgess, but aside from your belief that he’s the one who broke into your lab, there’s no evidence—”
“It wasn’t a break-in,” Jacqui said. “The door and the lock weren’t damaged. He’s the only one besides me who has a key.” She’d never even shared a key with Braden, and he’d worked there for almost two years.
“Mr. Burgess claims he lost his keys a couple of days ago. He had to contact his car manufacturer to replace the one for his car—and he has a record of having done that. Also, he has a video camera at the house that shows when he came in and left. He was home all night.”
They had a video camera at the lab too. But it had been tampered with, the recordings destroyed. Even the ones stored off-site had been hacked and deleted. Only Don could have accomplished that. She’d explained as much to the detective already. 
“He obviously planned the break-in and claimed his keys were lost. The man’s a technical genius.” Jacqui worked hard to keep her voice level. “He could easily have climbed out the window, or even tampered with the video to make it look—”
“I know your theories, Ms. Beal. I’m having someone look at the recording to see if it’s been altered. Until we get some real evidence, though, Mr. Burgess won’t be arrested.”
She rubbed her temples. “When do you think—?”
“We’ve got a backlog of cases. We’re doing our best, but even if we can get enough evidence to make an arrest, it’ll be weeks, maybe longer.” 
Why was she surprised? Sure, her business had been destroyed, but nothing had even been stolen. This was just another day at the office for Detective Klein. “Okay, then. Thank you for—”
“The thing is,” Klein said, “after seeing your lab today, I recommend you take extra precautions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whoever did it, whether it was Burgess or someone else… Whoever it was, it was personal. And violent. I’m suggesting that maybe, next time, it won’t be equipment he attacks.”


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