I was no longer just the rebellious kid, therefore they were terrified. I started to understand that the trust fund was more than just an inheritance my grandmother had left for me, and I had turned into a serious threat. It was evidence that she trusted my integrity and thought I was capable of much more.
Margaret gave me the task of ending the destructive cycle, even though the Lee family’s entire world was centered upon wealth and power.
And I became a target because of this secret as well as what I discovered about the company’s harmful dumping. Not all my parents wanted was to reclaim the $10 million.
They sought to defend the empire they had taken in name but that my grandmother had inadvertently created with her genius.
And they believed that taking me out of the game completely was the best way to keep things safe.
During my last semester at the University of Chicago, I had the opportunity to participate in a field study project organized by the environmental science department in collaboration with a nearby conservation organization, which is how I learned about the company’s illicit toxic dumping.
The Calumet River, a stream that passes through several industrial areas on Chicago’s south side and has long been known to be contaminated, served as the study location.
I picked the subject not just because I was passionate about science but also because I had a strong, almost instinctual feeling that something was out there simply waiting to be discovered.
Initially, the task involved gathering water and sediment samples and returning them to the laboratory for examination. I measured pH, dissolved oxygen, and looked for heavy metals with other kids.
However, I saw concerning anomalies from the very first testing.
The levels of lead and mercury exceeded the EPA’s safety requirements by a significant margin. The results grew increasingly unsettling the further we investigated.
We started looking for evidence of pharmaceutical chemicals, which are artificial molecules that I recognized right away from reading trade publications.
These compounds usually only appear in untreated effluent from pharmaceutical production facilities.
My supervising professor gave me a serious nod when I presented my findings.
“We have long suspected this, but no one has ever had sufficient scientific evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”
I was thinking about something at the time, but I was afraid to say it out loud.
Is it possible that Lee Pharmaceuticals, the business owned by my own father, was at fault?
I discreetly spent additional time comparing water samples from other river sections in the weeks that followed.
On the west side, the current brought me closer to an industrial complex with a sign that said, “West Facility, Lee Pharmaceuticals.”
As I read those lines, my heart raced. My own family seemed to be at the center of everything I was discovering.
I began to delve further. I checked over the facility’s public wastewater treatment reports, but they were replete with seemingly immaculate data. My internship experience taught me that no procedure ever went so effortlessly.
There was something being concealed.
I meticulously documented everything in a confidential journal, took covert pictures, and kept sample data. The evidence grew daily.
I found dangerously high quantities of cyclopental in samples taken just outside the PL gates.
This is a novel substance that isn’t currently on standard testing lists, but I identified it right away. I had read about the same experimental medication in the company’s internal research papers.
It could not have happened by chance. Only the laboratories of Lee Pharmaceuticals could have produced it.
My stomach knotted up. I was a truth-driven scientist, on the one hand. Conversely, this was my family, my parents’ business, where Sophia currently worked as a manager.
It would be like turning a gun on my own family if I went public. But then I recalled what my grandmother had said:
“Never allow anyone to determine your value.”
I know Mom would want me to act morally if she were still with us.
