Normally this information has the camera used, shutter speed, location, aperture, things of that nature. But Delilah’s smart. She changed the GPS location to documents hidden on the dark web. A case study by Dr. Ramon Gates—”
“Dr. Gates? The decapitated-pig-brain-experiment study?” Garrett inquired.
“No. Though I found that as well. Dr. Gates is in the beginning stages of experimenting with bio-circuits. Abrams is funding his research. The doctor believes biological circuits will improve the cognitive radar and jump Abrams into a whole new realm.”
When Tex finished, the room went silent until Evette sucked in a breath.
“Now I remember.” She slammed her hand on the table and shook her head. “When you mentioned El Salvador something was pricking my brain but I couldn’t remember. Now I do. A colleague wrote an article about a scientist from Santa Ana, El Salvador. He went missing after successfully finding a new way to engineer brain cells by reprogramming skin cells to become stem cells. The article was on biological computing. Neil—that’s the guy who wrote the piece—said it was going to be the wave of the future.”
“Did you help research this article?” I asked and prayed she didn’t.
“No. I just read it after he was finished. I had nothing to do with any of it.”
Then Delilah’s email disappeared and a picture of a young man appeared.
“Dr. Ramon Gates.” Garrett pointed to the screen but kept his head bent, reading from his laptop. “His mother is Croatian and currently resides in Dubrovnik. Incidentally, that is the city where Abrams is in the process of leasing twenty acres of government land. For those of you who failed world geography Dubrovnik is in southern Croatia and borders Bosnia. His father was American, died in a car accident when Ramon was ten. He has a Ph.D. in cognitive sciences and a master's in neuroscience. IQ is one-seventy-nine. Never been married, no children, no siblings.”
“Jesus. He looks fifteen,” Owen muttered.
“Oh, sorry. He’s thirty-five,” Garrett added.
“Well, I’m with Owen,” Cooper joined. “The evil brain doctor looks like a teenager.”
“What’s your take on Dr. Gates? Is this Abrams exploiting a young, ambitious doctor or is the doctor using Abrams to further his creepy-ass brain experiments?”
“No clue,” Tex answered honestly. “I’m far from stupid and I had to use a dictionary to read half of the research papers I looked up. I will say, this guy is highly respected even if there’s an ethics committee looking into the pig brain experiment. But that’s not surprising considering it could redefine the meaning “brain dead” and there are long-reaching ramifications to that. What I do know is, Delilah Watts is in a buttload of trouble, and the kind of trouble she’s in means if the wrong person finds her, she’s dead. She also stuck her neck out there and tried to get this information to Evette. So I’d say, she knows something’s not right with why Abrams wants Dr. Gates’ brain research. Do not let her get off the phone when you call her until she agrees to let you help her. And personally, I’m shocked as shit the woman’s not dead. I’m also surprised that Abrams sent the halfwit Forrest Lawson to take out Evette considering what she was in possession of. My guess is they didn’t know what she had, just that she was snooping around and they didn’t like that. Watch your six with her, too. No doubt Abrams isn’t done yet.”
Evette’s hand squeezing mine barely registered. Owen murmuring something to Tex went unheard.
Abrams isn’t done yet.
I struggled to keep a lid on my growing panic. My instincts screamed at me to take her and run.
My gut was never wrong. And it wouldn’t be this time either. Only I wouldn’t know it until later and by then it was too fucking late. And even I couldn’t’ve predicted how bad it would be.
Chapter 22
My heart was racing. This was it. All the pieces were clicking into place.
Delilah Watts was a whistleblower, not a bad guy, and now I was seriously worried for her.
“Speaking of Lawson,” Tex cut into my thoughts, “I looked deeper and can’t find a single connection to Abrams. Lawson’s dead and whoever did him in is in the wind. The cops got nothing. I looked into that as well but without knowing where he was snatched and killed all we got is a tall figure dressed in black, face covered, coming out of the shadows to dump Lawson in a dumpster. It’s a safe bet the figure is male but