Chương 7
Claire leaned back.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
That possibility had been waiting quietly all morning.
Richard disliked it.
“What did Noah hear last night?”
Claire rubbed her forehead.
“My call with Martin.”
“You told him my heart would stop being the problem.”
“I said after tomorrow, your heart finally stops being the problem because the procedure was supposed to help you.”
Richard looked toward the window.
“I said I was tired of waiting because you’ve postponed the angiography twice.”
“And ‘don’t make another mistake’?”
Claire frowned.
“I didn’t hear that.”
“Noah did.”
“Then somebody else said it.”
“The man in the hallway.”
“I never saw a man.”
Richard studied her.
“Who has access to the estate?”
“You. Me. Marta. Security. Martin has had access for years.”
“And Mercer?”
“Only when invited.”
Richard took out his phone.
He called the head of estate security.
No answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Claire stood.
“What?”
“Dawson isn’t answering.”
“Maybe he’s working.”
“He answers me.”
“Dad, not everybody lives attached to your phone.”
Richard looked at her.
“You do.”
“I’m your daughter. It’s a different kind of employment.”
He laughed unexpectedly.
Claire did too.
It lasted only a moment.
Then Samuel Ortega called.
Richard answered.
“You have something?”
“I have a preliminary screen.”
Claire stood beside the bed.
Richard put the call on speaker.
Samuel’s voice became formal.
“The tablet you brought me is not what the label says it is.”
Nobody moved.
Richard stared at the white hospital blanket over his legs.
“What is it?”
“A compounded tablet containing a high concentration of a beta-blocking agent plus another cardiac-active compound. I’m not giving you a definitive toxicology opinion until confirmatory testing is complete.”
“What would it do?”
“At sufficient dose, in someone with your history? Severe bradycardia, hypotension, conduction problems. Potentially worse.”
Claire sat down.
Richard watched her.
She looked sick.
Samuel continued.
“You need to tell your physicians immediately, and you need law enforcement involved. Also, Richard?”
“Yes.”
“Do not touch the remaining tablets. Do not let anyone dispose of anything.”
Richard ended the call.
Claire covered her mouth.
Richard said nothing.
For months he had swallowed tablets from that amber bottle without examining them.
Someone had replaced at least one.
Perhaps many.
Mercer returned.
Richard told him.
The cardiologist’s face went through disbelief, calculation, and something that looked like fear.
He asked to see the tablet.
“It’s at an independent lab.”
“Which lab?”
Richard did not answer.
Mercer looked at Claire.
She did not answer either.
For the first time in years, father and daughter were on the same side of a silence.
Hospital security arrived first.
Police came forty minutes later.
The angiography was postponed.
Richard hated that part.
Not because he wanted the procedure.
Because postponing it meant the person responsible had changed his medical care without ever entering the hospital.
Detective Lena Brooks took the first statement.
She was forty-something, tired-looking, and unimpressed by Richard’s name.
He liked her immediately.
She separated him from Claire.
He liked that too.
“Tell me what you know,” she said.
Richard began with Noah.
Brooks stopped him.
“No conclusions. Exact words where possible.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“My grandson received the same lecture.”
“Smart kid.”
“Smarter than several executives I’ve employed.”
“That a high bar?”
“Disturbingly low.”
She did not laugh.
He liked her more.
He told her everything.
When he finished, she asked, “Who benefits if you die?”
Richard looked at her.
“That is an ugly question.”
“It usually is.”
He named Claire.
He named Martin.
He named the company.
He named the trust.
He named the insurance policies he remembered.
Brooks wrote without reacting.
“Anybody else?”
Richard thought about Mercer.
“My cardiologist could theoretically create opportunity.”
“Motive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we don’t invent one.”
Richard nodded.
That afternoon police searched the estate with his consent.
The medicine cabinet contained three prescription bottles.
Two were legitimate.
The third contained twenty-seven tablets visually identical to Richard’s medication.
Preliminary testing later showed six had been altered.
Not all.
Six.
That detail mattered.
Someone had not simply replaced a bottle.
Someone had mixed dangerous tablets among real ones.
It meant Richard could take his medication for days without anything happening, then suddenly receive a dangerous dose.
Randomness disguised intent.
The security system provided the next problem.
The hallway camera had been disabled from 9:42 p.m. until 11:18 p.m.
The system log showed an administrator login.
The administrator account belonged to Richard.
He had not used it.
Dawson, the security chief, finally answered at 3:10 that afternoon.
He said he had been hiking in an area without reception.
Brooks asked him to come to the station.
He arrived with a lawyer.
Richard learned that detail from Claire.
They were sitting in his hospital room eating vending-machine pretzels because neither had remembered lunch.
Noah was with a hospital social worker and then, reluctantly, with Marta.
Claire broke a pretzel in half.
“Dawson lawyered up.”
“Smart.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“People with lawyers should use them.”
She gave him a look.
“You used to call that suspicious.”
“I used to be an idiot in several areas.”
“Used to?”
Richard looked at her.
Claire smiled despite herself.
It was the first unguarded expression he had seen from her in days.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Martin.
She declined it.
Richard said, “Answer next time.”
“No.”
“We need to know what he says.”
“We need to let the police do their job.”
“Since when are you cautious?”
“Since somebody put dangerous medication in my father’s pill bottle.”
Richard folded the pretzel wrapper into a narrow rectangle.
Claire watched him.
“Mom used to do that.”
“What?”
“Fold wrappers.”
“She hated mess.”
“She hated your mess.”
“That too.”
Claire looked toward the window.
The silence changed.
Richard said, “Why didn’t you tell me what she found?”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“You didn’t give me the chance.”
Claire’s eyes stayed on the window.
“You want the ugly answer?”
“Yes.”
“I was angry.”
May you like
“At me?”
“At both of you.”
