“May I see your tattoo?” Ridley asked as she flashed her best thousand-watt smile.
Brandon rolled back his sleeve. “It’s a phoenix rising from the ashes. It symbolizes rebirth, perseverance, and fortitude.”
I almost laughed out loud; it was obvious he was trying to be the most masculine version of himself in front of Ridley, and I found it deeply amusing.
If Ridley found his act laughable, she didn’t show it. Instead, she used his interest to our advantage. She leaned in and reached for his arm, gently holding his forearm under the guise of getting a better look. “Very nice, Brandon. May I call you Brandon?”
“Of course. Ridley, right?”
“Yes.”
“When are you due?” He asked, nodding to her belly.
“Soon,” she said in a noncommittal way, then smiled at him again.
“If you don’t mind me saying, you really have that whole pregnant-woman-glow thing going on.”
“Thank you.”
“Your husband is a lucky man.”
I almost puked right there. I could not believe this was happening. Again. Another man falling head over heels for Ridley.
She demurred, and then held up her bare left hand. “No husband. I am—how do you say?—doing it solo.”
Since I knew Ridley spoke perfect English, I could see what was going on here; she was playing the hot and helpless foreigner. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but since her efforts seemed to be working, I didn’t jump in and call her on it. There’d be time for that later. Before Brandon got down on one knee and proposed marriage, I cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry,” he turned to me for the first time. “Your name, again?”
“Riley.”
“That’s cute. Ridley/Riley. You two are like double trouble.” His condescending laugh crawled underneath my skin.
“You’ve built up quite a company here,” I said, changing the subject. “I’d love to know more about what you guys do.”
Brandon puffed up like a proud papa. “Invigor8 is on the cutting edge of the biomedical engineering industry. We are small, nimble, and are about to change the freaking world with our latest development.” Understated he was not.
“And what is that?” Ridley lifted an eyebrow in a flirty impress me sort of gesture.
Brandon looked to the open door and then lowered his voice. “I’m not at liberty to discuss details, but let’s just say that Invigor8 is not only about to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry, but the tobacco industry as well.”
“Tobacco?” I said, my heartbeat ticking up.
He nodded. “We’re still in the patent-development phase, so I can’t say too much, but we have made some incredibly exciting advances in biopharming, specifically with tobacco. If everything goes as planned, Invigor8 will become a household name.”
“What is biopharming?” Ridley asked.
“Yeah, it’s sort of a play on words—farm with an f and pharmaceuticals with a ph. But it’s basically bioengineering plants to create drugs that are more effective, cheaper, and safer for patients. In our case, we’re working with tobacco plants. This is Virginia after all.”
“What kind of drug are you creating?”
“Can’t say. Top secret. But the whole world will know soon. And believe me, you’ll be impressed.” He winked at Ridley, who to her credit did her best to look interested.
Clearly, Brandon Laytner had a massive ego, unnatural confidence, and an unusually thick neck. And his rocky relationship with Arthur Davenport gave me pause. If this drug under development was so revolutionary, why would Dr. Davenport quit the study so suddenly? Was it possible he noticed some problems in the research? Would that have been enough of a motive for Brandon to want Dr. Davenport silenced permanently?
“Mr. Laytner,” I said, and then waited for him to wrench his eyes away from Ridley. “I was wondering if you could tell me about your company’s relationship with Arthur Davenport?”
“Nasty business, him getting killed like that,” he said without the slightest bit of emotion. “I was shocked to hear the news.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Not well,” Brandon said. “We’d only worked together a few months, but I had a lot of respect for the man.”
He was answering my questions, but only just. I dug deeper. “Do you know his children?”
Brandon looked a little surprised by the question, but shook his head. “Never met them. Like I said, we’d only been working together a few months and even then it was mostly through email.” If he was lying, I couldn’t tell.
“How long had Arthur been working for Invigor8 before he died?” I wanted to test the waters to see how forthcoming Laytner would be. He didn’t know that I already knew that Arthur had severed ties. Would he try to cover that up? Or would he come clean and tell me the reason?
“Let’s see,” he said, his eyes floating over to Ridley then back to me. “I first talked to Artie about coming on board last spring, maybe in April?”
I paused to see if he was going to go on or if I’d have to prod. When he spent the next twenty seconds staring at Ridley, I knew I was going to have to prod. “And how were things going? As far as his work was concerned?”
“What did you say you were writing about again?”
“I’m just gathering some background information on Dr. Davenport for the Times,” I said, vaguely.
“Look, are you fishing around for information on why Arthur quit the study? ’Cause I’ll tell you straight up. It didn’t have anything to do with Invigor8, or me, or with our new drug. Arthur quit because he had a conflict of interest with one of our investors.”
Ridley, who had been good and silent up until that moment, jumped into the conversation. “What does this mean, ‘conflict of interest’?”
Maybe it was her slight Swedish accent, or maybe it was her act from before, but Brandon began a long, boring mansplanation of what the term ‘conflict of interest’ means. “A conflict of interest is when the goals of two
