Page 25 of Brax

“Did you figure it out?” asked Stephanie.

“Not yet, honey,” smiled Riley. “Hayes figured out that it was written in three different languages, which was why we were struggling with it.”

“Oh. That’s interesting. I wonder why he did that?”

“Confuse other people?” shrugged Lucinda. “It definitely confused all of us.”

“I don’t think that’s why,” said Suzette. “Hayes thought it was random, like he was doing it and didn’t realize he was doing it. If that’s true, he had a brilliant mind. I’ve seen people move from one language to another easily. Trak does it, Ivan does it, even Mama and Pops will slip from English to French now and then. Your brain has to completely understand both languages thoroughly.”

On the televisions in the cafeteria, the news was showing horrible photos of a business in Houston that had been bombed by a disgruntled employee. The business was GTR Genetics.

“Hey,” said Brax, “turn that up.”

“It’s a tragic scene here. GTR Genetics conducts research into rare genetic disorders and diseases. According to the police, preliminary interviews indicate that an employee who was recently let go returned, demanding access to the files that they were working on. When her manager refused, she shot him in the leg and walked out. Before authorities could arrive, she’d driven her car through the front window and tossed three explosive devices into the business.

“Fortunately, there were timers that allowed two full minutes for the remaining staff to get out. It seems the employee didn’t want to kill anyone, just destroy GTR.”

“Anyone feel the warm fuzzies when you hear that?” asked Brax.

“I damn sure do,” said Saint. “This can’t be a coincidence. We know that he was from Houston, and his daughter still lives there. Does she have any connection to the business?” AJ shook his head.

“Not that I can see,” he said, scrolling through his tablet. “It was owned by a private equity group out of California. Has a great reputation in the medical community, and they do what the reporter said. Their specialty is researching and trying to find cures for rare genetic diseases and disorders.”

“Anything on there about clones?” asked Stephanie.

“Nothing on their information pages, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Well,” said Saint, “looks like we’re going to Houston.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Asa Lawrence stood outside the offices of GTR Genetics, watching as the FBI and ATF agents sifted through the destruction. Almost everything they had was saved on a secure server that backed up to the cloud, but there was also all the experimental equipment they were using.

“Mr. Lawrence?” asked Brax.

“Yes, that’s me. What agency are you with?” he asked.

“We’re not with an agency. We’re a private security firm that’s looking into a school that potentially abused children who were highly intelligent, possibly even cloning them.” He stared at him, frowning, and shook his head.

“We don’t work with any schools, and that’s not something we would ever condone. We very specifically look at genetic markers that cause certain diseases.”

“I understand that, sir, but we recently met with the daughter of Dr. Felix Rubenstein. Are you familiar with that name?”

“I’d say. He did some pretty groundbreaking research twenty, maybe thirty years ago. He was obsessed with trying to create a clone of his dead wife and daughter. He had a living daughter, whom you obviously met, but apparently, he wanted to get the other daughter and his wife back.”

“That sounds like him,” said Mav. “Is there any possibility that your disgruntled employee was somehow connected to him?”

Asa started to speak and then closed his mouth. He looked at the destruction and devastation of their place of business and then back at the men.

“I want to say ‘no,’ but I have to be honest. You just put a thought in my head that won’t go away. Confidentially, her name is Ines Ruben. I never made a connection before. There wasn’t a reason to.”

“Why would she do this?” asked Pax.

“She’s been disciplined several times for consistently being late to work, not calling in when she was scheduled to be here, asking for four days off, and taking five or six or even an entire week.”

“No reason given?” asked Brax.

“Ines was an interesting individual. Brilliant, but we had to be careful how we treated her.”

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