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“I imagine your dad did that because he knew Lionel so well, and this was how your dad could get the funding he needed.”
“But he died before he could explain it wasn’t,” Piper said.
“In the journal, your dad says he did tell Lionel that the formula caused cancer in the mice that hadn’t been genetically altered.”
Piper stuck her spoon in the air. “So Lionel knew about the cancer risk.”
“Your dad also said that they were working to fix the problem and that the cancer was in mouse studies, not human studies.”
“Because there are no human studies.” Piper shoved a giant spoonful of purple ice cream in her mouth, speaking past it, “Lionel would hear that mice get cancer. Humans don’t. Of course, he would. People hear selectively.” Piper swallowed. “That’s the bad?”
“No, there’s worse. Your dad wrote in his journal that he was certain that they—Amanda and Lionel—would ignore the warning and take the formula. And he was certain of the outcome, that they would die within six months.”
Piper’s head pounded with brain freeze.
“He said it was just deserts for driving your mom—Sherry—to the sea.”
“What does that even mean?” Piper’s lips barely moved as she spoke.
“From your dad’s journal, it seems Lionel was obsessed with your mom. Your dad and mom got married earlier than they had planned, thinking Lionel would move on. He did. He started dating a string of women that looked like Sherry.”
“Amanda.”
“Exactly. Though your dad wrote that even though he was dating look-alikes and married Amanda, he stalked Sherry, and Sherry was terrified that Lionel was so obsessed with her that he’d kill her or worse; she was afraid that he would kill you and your dad to remove you from the picture. So they decided the safest place for her was to follow her graduate work and head out to sea on research vessels.”
Piper was too stunned to speak.
Lionel is a sociopath?
“Whenever Sherry landed, he was there.”
“To this day?” Piper whispered.
“So if Lionel dies first, Sherry is free.”
“Mom will be free. And she could come home? Is that right? Can that be why? That’s not the story I was told.”
“What could they say?”
Lionel was a sociopath.
“Why would my dad stay there? That seems an unlikely and very long-winded way to try to murder someone.”
“My guess? Is your parents were trying to protect you.”
“Lionel never said anything to me. He never bothered me at all. I mean, there was always a weird vibe, but … what do you mean?”
“Your dad needed to find the medication that would keep you alive. Lionel was providing the funding. And I think that because all through his journals, when I searched funding, there are applications all the time, and some dollars trickled in, but not enough that he could walk away. His journals were filled with ‘I will save Piper’ sentiments.”
Piper broke out in a sweat; her heart was pounding so hard the thumping filled her ears. The world tipped, then righted.
“My dad put up with that to save me. And my mom went away to save us all. And he told Lionel what he told Lionel because he wanted Lionel dead.”
Lionel is a sociopath.
“The phrase your dad used was hoisted himself on his own petard.”
“But you know they took it?” Piper asked, secretly hoping that maybe they had. If it was true, Lionel had destroyed their happy family, and he could just go ahead and suffer the consequences of his own vanity.
