Second Sleep by Diane Stanley

Author:Diane Stanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2021-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

HE WAKES TO RAIN, the kind with fat, heavy drops that fall straight down. In the living room, it’s just Mozelle, reading and drinking her coffee. Rosie’s still asleep because it’s a sleep-in kind of morning. Gray and quiet, the soothing patter of rain on the roof.

Mozelle points toward the kitchen, where something sweet is warming in the oven. But Max joins her at the table instead. He wants to talk before Rosie gets up.

“I’ve been thinking about Mom and the ‘worthy’ project.”

“Oh?” She marks her place and closes the book. Gives him her full attention.

“Yeah. It’s like a puzzle. We have these pieces of a story that somehow fit together. And when they do, it’ll all make sense. I mean, there aren’t even that many pieces. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“So what are the pieces?”

“Well, the friend told Mom he needed her to help because she’s a doctor. So, that’s one. And whatever his project is, it’s complicated or hard in some way. A lot of work involved. Third, it’s somehow dangerous to the friend, which is why he’s being so secretive. And four, Mom said the project is important and worthy. So: medical, complicated, dangerous, and worthy. Just four pieces. How many scenarios could fit that description?”

Mozelle stares into the middle distance and blinks, like this is a new approach and she’s running it through her mind. “Good reasoning, Max.”

“And?”

“Well, the dangerous-but-worthy conflict feels like the key. That really narrows it down. So we have to ask, what’s the source of the danger? It wouldn’t be the police—unless, of course, they were so-called bad cops and he’s exposing them.” Then she sucks in breath so hard it makes her cough. “That’s it!”

“Bad cops?”

“No. Police corruption isn’t related to medicine. But it could be some other kind of wrongdoing that the friend has discovered and wants to expose.” Suddenly, her hands go up, like she’s telling Max to stop, when in fact he isn’t doing anything.

“What?”

“Medicine! A hospital that’s overcharging patients or shielding incompetent doctors. A lab that’s doing sloppy research that could have major public health consequences, mishandling smallpox samples, something like that. Or a pharmaceutical company that’s been promoting drugs they know are harmful or useless. I’ll bet the friend is a whistleblower!”

“A what?”

“You know how in sports, referees blow a whistle to stop the game when there’s been a foul? This is calling attention to a different kind of foul, which is why they call it that. Like in the famous tobacco case. The Philip Morris Company knew their cigarettes were highly addictive and that smoking caused cancer. They even had internal studies to prove it. But they were making so much money, they hid the evidence and went on selling cigarettes. They even added chemicals to make them more addictive.”

“Whoa, nasty!”

“Yes. A classic case of heartless greed. Fortunately, someone on the inside exposed what the company was doing, ‘blew the whistle’ on big tobacco. It was a brave thing to do and there were consequences for him.

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