“I broke up with him. He cribbed a paper. He stole my work. That’s the kind of guy he is. He diddled with the title, added five coauthors, two of whom I swear to god he made up out of whole cloth. Then he sent it off to a scientific journal. When it appeared months later, I confronted him. Big mistake. You know how many papers I have to my name? Six. He’s probably had fifty published in this year alone. That should be another little clue to the higher-ups. With that many, how does he have time to do his work?”

“Why did you apply for the job?”

“I screwed up. Big time. I knew it was his lab, but I’d forgotten how crazy he is.”

“But he’s a bright guy. Why’s he doing this?”

“Why does he do anything? Because he’s high ego and he’s a narcissist. Dangerous combination. He’s not a man who deals well with stress. Something happened in Arkansas a few years ago. I don’t have all the details, but a patient died and the error was traced to him. He couldn’t face it. He suffered a total nervous breakdown and had to be carted off to the funny farm.”

“It didn’t affect his career?”

“Not his career; his residency. Check his CV and you’ll see the gap. That’s when he moved from surgical oncology to research.”

“And if it happens again?”

“I hope I’m not around. This turns sour on him, then what? You want my best guess? He’ll have a computer crash and lose everything. That way they’ll never nail him. Imagine all the sympathy he’ll get. An entire year’s work down the drain when he was doing so well.”

“I thought even with a crash, there were ways to restore the files.”

“He could spill a cup of coffee down his CPU or the lab might catch fire. He could go in and change a few numbers. The data could be sitting right there, but he’d be the only one who’d have access because no one else would know the magic key strokes.”

“If I told you I had the charts in my possession, would that help?”

“It might. Look, I’m not the only one aware of what’s going on. There’s a postdoc in the lab who’s seen the same things I have. Little signs of Linton’s cooking, little things that don’t quite add up.”

“Would this postdoc agree to talk to me?”

“No. He’s married and has kids. You think he’d risk his livelihood? I can promise you he won’t. Even if he did agree, you wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

She smiled briefly. “You can do what I’m doing. Pack a bag and flee.”