Chương 4
He almost laughed.
“You don’t know me very well.”
“I know your type very well.”
That actually made him smile.
It disappeared quickly.
“What about my daughter?”
“Is there somewhere safe she can stay tonight?”
Daniel looked through the glass toward Emma.
She had curled sideways in the chair.
His first thought was that he should call Vanessa’s sister.
He hated that his mind still reached toward Vanessa’s family.
Then he thought of his own sister, Rachel, who lived forty minutes away and whom he had not seen in two months because Vanessa said visits exhausted him.
Daniel looked back at Greene.
“Yes.”
He called Rachel at 11:26.
She answered after one ring.
“Daniel?”
“Can you come to the hospital?”
Silence.
Then, “What happened?”
He could hear sheets moving, a lamp clicking.
“I need you to come get Emma.”
“What happened?”
“Rachel.”
Another pause.
“I’m leaving now.”
She did not ask again.
That kindness nearly broke him.
Emma woke when Rachel arrived.
She stared at her aunt for a full second and then slid out of the chair.
Rachel crouched.
Emma walked into her arms.
Only then did she cry.
Not loudly.
Her face simply collapsed against Rachel’s shoulder, and her entire small body began making the movements she had refused to make all evening.
Daniel turned his face toward the window.
Rachel held Emma for a long time.
When she finally looked at Daniel, there was anger in her expression.
Not at him exactly.
Not only at him.
“What happened?”
He told her enough.
Rachel listened without interrupting.
At the end, she said, “Where’s Vanessa?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to go to the house?”
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
Rachel noticed.
“You’re afraid of her?”
Daniel looked at his sister.
“No.”
“You should consider the possibility that you don’t know what you’re afraid of yet.”
He hated the sentence.
Mostly because it sounded true.
The next morning a physician Daniel had never met came in with preliminary results.
He was careful with his language.
Something had appeared in Daniel’s screening that did not match the medication list in his chart.
It could help explain some of the excessive sedation, dizziness, and weakness Daniel had described.
It did not explain everything.
The doctor would not say that Daniel had been poisoned.
He would not say the exposure had been intentional.
He would not say exactly how long it had been happening based on one test.
Daniel appreciated the caution while resenting every word of it.
“What do you know?” he asked.
“We know you were exposed to a substance that isn’t on the medication list your physician confirmed.”
“Could it have come from something normal? Food? A supplement?”
“Not likely.”
“Could it make my existing condition seem worse?”
“Yes.”
“How much worse?”
“That depends on factors we don’t know yet.”
Daniel looked out the window.
Morning had turned the hospital parking structure pale gray.
“So I might not be as sick as I thought.”
The physician hesitated.
“You are sick, Mr. Carter. I don’t want you to turn uncertainty into the opposite kind of certainty.”
Daniel looked back.
“You still have an underlying neurological condition. Some of your limitations are real and may remain. But it’s reasonable to investigate whether something else has been increasing the severity.”
That answer hurt.
It also gave him something he had not felt in months.
Possibility.
He distrusted it immediately.
Rachel brought Emma back shortly after noon because Emma had refused to stay away.
She entered Daniel’s room carrying a paper bag from a bakery.
“I got you a muffin.”
Daniel looked at the bag.
“Did you make it?”
Emma froze.
Rachel’s eyes widened.
Daniel closed his eyes.
“God. Em, I’m sorry.”
Emma stared at him for another moment.
Then she reached into the bag, pulled out the wrapped muffin, and tossed it onto his blanket.
“It’s sealed.”
Her tone was annoyed.
It was the most normal thing he had heard since the spoon hit the floor.
He laughed.
It hurt his chest.
Emma laughed too.
Rachel did not.
She walked to the window.
Daniel unwrapped the muffin himself.
That afternoon, his attorney called.
Then the company’s general counsel.
Then his chief operating officer.
Daniel answered none of them at first.
His phone kept vibrating on the tray table until Rachel picked it up and turned it face down.
“You realize ignoring problems is not your style.”
“My style seems to need revision.”
Rachel sat beside him.
She had their mother’s hands. Daniel had not noticed that until then.
“What did the police say?”
“They’re testing the bottles.”
“And Vanessa?”
“She hired an attorney.”
Rachel stared.
“How do you know?”
“My attorney told me.”
“Of course she did.”
Daniel looked toward Emma, who was drawing at a small table across the room.
“Not in front of her.”
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Daniel, she watched a woman put something in your drink.”
“She watched her try.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
Daniel did.
He said nothing.
Rachel leaned closer.
“You don’t have to protect Vanessa from the grammar.”
He looked down at his hands.
“I’m not protecting her.”
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Rachel more than anything else.
She sat back.
Emma looked up from her drawing.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Can Claire get in trouble?”
Daniel glanced at Rachel.
“I don’t know.”
“She was scared.”
“I know.”
“She tried to tell you.”
Daniel frowned.
“When?”
Emma lowered her marker.
“The week before my recital.”
Daniel tried to remember.
There had been a recital.
He had not attended.
Vanessa had told him he had slept through the afternoon and would not be strong enough.
“What did Claire say?”
“She asked if you knew why your bottles looked different sometimes.”
Daniel felt something cold move through him.
“What did I say?”
Emma looked uncomfortable.
“You didn’t hear her.”
“Where was I?”
“In the library.”
“I was awake?”
“You were on your computer.”
May you like
Daniel stared at her.
“Then why didn’t I hear her?”
