“The new one?” Miles asked. “The one they’re building?”
Ryan shook his head. “The old one. The very first thing you guys ever told me about Anthony Hess was that he wasn’t a take-over-the-world kind of bad guy, he was the profit margin kind. Where’s the profit in this deal with the Kimble Group? The new hospital, that makes sense: that’s big money. But putting community clinics in prime business space? Nobody is going to just give away real estate like that.”
“What about public image?” Evelyn asked. “Sure makes him look good.”
“But he doesn’t need it. Hess is the city’s golden boy. He’s already got everybody eating out of his hand, he doesn’t need to add salt. Especially not by sacrificing millions of dollars.”
“What are you saying?” Daniel asked.
“I’m saying that the free clinics have to be part of his expansion plans for Vain. Now I don’t know if he’s going to use the clinics to get more blood from people or to get more people addicted to his stuff, but there’s not a doubt in my mind: he’s expanding his operation. Galloway the hospital administrator, or I guess, just the hospital, that’s the key to all of this: we knew he was making the stuff locally and we knew he was getting large quantities of human blood from somewhere without anyone noticing. I don’t know what’s going on at that hospital, but we’ve finally got a link in the chain and I think it’s the best lead we’ve got.”
Ruby nodded. “Makes sense. Even if they don’t have Robert at the hospital, it’s as good a place as any to start looking.”
“How did you put all of this together?” Evelyn asked.
Ryan took a deep breath. “I’ve watched a lot of Scooby Doo. I mean, a lot.”