The Man Who Never Looked Away novel Chapter 190

The founder was a man named Quentin Miller. According to his resume, he completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University and subsequently worked as a lead researcher at the globally renowned Clearspring Harbor Laboratory.

Lavinia started her deep dive on the Scholaris Database, downloading several of Quentin's published papers as the primary author.

The data was immaculate. The conclusions were overwhelmingly optimistic, with practically zero drawbacks. She then cross-referenced his tenure at Clearspring Harbor Laboratory. His resume claimed he was a "Postdoctoral Research Fellow from 2015-2017."

She pulled out her phone and sent a message to Scott Lambert, an upperclassman from her medical university. "Scott, do you know anyone currently at Clearspring Harbor?"

Scott quickly replied with a voice memo. "I have an older colleague who did a visiting fellowship there. Let me ask around."

Later that afternoon, Scott texted back. "No record of him. Quentin Miller is completely absent from Clearspring's postdoctoral registry for those two years."

Lavinia sat frozen at her desk, staring at the message on her screen for a long time.

The clinical literature for Renova Biosciences was inherently flawed as well.

She had cross-referenced the experimental data in Quentin's papers against publicly available data for similar targeted drugs. Multiple critical metrics displayed bizarre anomalies.

The efficacy curve was suspiciously perfect—literally the best-case scenario across the board, which defied basic pharmacology.

She wasn't a clinical trial expert, but as a medical student, she knew the success rate for innovative drug development hovered around ten percent.

For a man with a fabricated elite laboratory background to produce such pristine data... it was highly probable the numbers were entirely faked.

She meticulously organized all her findings and locked them inside an encrypted folder.

***

"Lavinia, get in here!" Jocelyn Chandler's voice cracked like a whip.

Her heart pounding against her ribs, Lavinia stepped into the director's office.

Jocelyn slammed the door shut and tossed Lavinia's first draft of the Renova Biosciences valuation report directly onto the desk.

"What is this garbage?" Jocelyn demanded furiously.

Lavinia picked up the report, flipped through the first two pages to ensure it was the right version, and met her boss's eyes.

"Ms. Chandler, I just can't get past my own conscience," Lavinia mumbled stubbornly.

Jocelyn stared at her, her voice dropping into a softer, more grounded tone.

"Lavinia, do you not understand what's happening? In this assessment, you aren't just representing yourself. You're carrying the weight of the entire Industry Research Department."

She took a breath and continued.

"Sigrid Sloan already orchestrated the firing of two of our people. That was humiliating enough. If you get eliminated in the final round too, do you have any idea how smug she's going to be?"

That hit Lavinia right where it hurt.

"Sit right here in my office," Jocelyn commanded gently. "Open the file on your laptop. You are going to rewrite this report, and you're going to change exactly what I tell you to change."

Lavinia stood perfectly still for several long seconds. Finally, she pulled out a chair, sat directly across from Jocelyn, and opened the document on her screen.

With Jocelyn watching her every keystroke, Lavinia systematically scrubbed every negative piece of data from the report, editing long into the night.