Chương 3
He looked at Mercer.
“What time?”
“Seven-thirty admission. Procedure around nine.”
“And what exactly happens before nine?”
Mercer hesitated.
Richard heard it.
“You check in. They prep you. We review medications.”
“What medications?”
“Richard.”
“Humor an old man.”
Mercer named them.
Richard listened.
One of them was the medication represented by the pills on his floor.
Mercer described it as routine.
Maybe it was.
Richard had taken it for months.
His eyes moved toward Claire.
She looked exhausted, irritated, worried.
She did not look murderous.
Richard hated himself for having the thought.
“Fine,” he said.
Claire blinked.
“Fine?”
“I’ll be ready at six-thirty.”
Mercer looked surprised.
That was useful.
Claire looked relieved.
That was harder to interpret.
Richard reached down and picked up another pill.
“Now everybody get out of my study.”
“Dad—”
“I said I’ll go.”
Claire looked at Noah.
“And Noah?”
“He can stay.”
“He needs bed.”
“So do I.”
“It’s a school night.”
“He’s not going to school tomorrow if we’re driving down the mountain at six-thirty.”
“I can arrange—”
“Claire.”
She stopped.
Richard kept his tone mild.
“Give me ten minutes with my grandson.”
Her eyes searched his face.
He let her.
He had negotiated with men who hired former intelligence officers to teach them how to read microexpressions. Most of those men still lost money because they spent so much time looking for tells that they forgot to listen to words.
Claire finally nodded.
“Ten minutes.”
Mercer opened the door for her.
Before leaving, Claire looked at the pills.
“Please take them.”
Richard nodded.
The door closed.
He waited until their footsteps receded.
Then he counted to twenty.
Noah whispered, “Grandpa?”
Richard put a finger to his lips.
He picked up his phone.
The anonymous message was still there.
No number appeared, only UNKNOWN CALLER.
He opened the details.
The message had come through an encrypted relay service.
Richard knew enough technology to understand what that meant and not enough to trace it himself.
He took a photograph of the pill in his palm.
Then another of the broken bottle.
Noah watched.
“Did Mom put poison in them?”
Richard looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“She said—”
“I believe you heard something.”
“That means you don’t believe me.”
“No. It means hearing part of a conversation and knowing what the whole conversation means are different things.”
Noah frowned.
Richard could see him trying to decide whether that was an adult trick.
It partly was.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Noah climbed out from beneath the desk.
Richard lifted him onto the leather chair and sat on the edge of the desk.
“Don’t tell me what you think it meant. Tell me what you heard.”
Noah stared at his sneakers.
“I went downstairs because I wanted water.”
“When?”
“After Mom said good night.”
“Then?”
“I heard her talking.”
“Where?”
“By the stairs.”
“To Dr. Mercer?”
Noah shook his head.
Richard’s stomach tightened.
“Could you see the man?”
“Not his face.”
“What did your mother say?”
Noah concentrated.
“She said, ‘Tomorrow?’”
“And?”
“The man said something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“I don’t know.”
Richard stopped pressing.
Noah picked at a loose thread on his hoodie.
“Then Mom said, ‘After tomorrow, his heart finally stops being the problem.’”
Richard stared at him.
Not what Noah had whispered before.
Different words.
Important difference.
“What else?”
“She said, ‘I’m tired of waiting.’”
“And the man?”
“He said, ‘Then don’t make another mistake.’”
Richard’s mouth went dry.
“Another mistake?”
Noah nodded.
“Then I came here.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see the pills.”
“Why?”
“Because they were talking about your heart.”
Richard looked at the tablet in his palm.
A child had taken an ambiguous conversation, connected it to medication, become frightened, and tried to investigate.
That was plausible.
It was also possible Noah had accidentally interrupted something much worse.
“Did your mother see you listening?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did the man?”
Noah’s eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
Richard felt the room narrow around him.
“What did he do?”
“He put his finger here.”
Noah touched his lips.
Richard said nothing.
“He told me not to wake Mom.”
“You heard his voice?”
Noah nodded.
“Was it Dr. Mercer?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Dr. Mercer talks like the dentist.”
Despite himself, Richard smiled.
“What does that mean?”
“You know.”
“I truly don’t.”
“Like everything’s okay when it isn’t.”
Richard almost laughed again.
Instead he looked toward the door.
“Could you recognize the other man?”
“I think.”
“Did you see anything about him?”
“He had a ring.”
“What kind?”
“Big.”
“Color?”
“Silver. Maybe.”
Noah hesitated.
“It had a bird.”
Richard stopped breathing for the second time that night.
He knew a man who wore a silver signet ring engraved with an eagle.
Martin Voss.
Richard’s chief financial officer.
His oldest friend.
And the executor named in the current version of Richard’s estate documents.
Noah watched his face.
“Do you know him?”
Richard put the pill in the pocket of his cardigan.
“No.”
The lie came easily.
That frightened him too.
At eleven the next morning, Richard Hale was supposed to be unconscious in a cardiac catheterization laboratory.
At eleven that night, sitting in his study with his grandson beside him and a warning on his phone, he began to wonder who had arranged for him to wake up afterward—and who had arranged for him not to.
He did not take the pills.
Instead he flushed two harmless vitamins down the toilet while Claire stood outside his bedroom door and listened to the water run.
Then he went to bed.
He did not sleep.
At 2:13 a.m., someone tried the handle of his bedroom door.
Richard watched the handle move in the darkness.
Once.
Twice.
Then stop.
He had locked it for the first time in the twenty-six years he had owned the house.
A shadow passed beneath the door.
Richard remained flat on his back, staring at the ceiling.
His phone was under his pillow.
May you like
He had already sent three messages.
The first went to his attorney.
