Part 7
The room seemed to contract.
“What was the private version?”
Beatrice looked toward Adrian. “You should leave.”
He did not move. “If this concerns medical research and an injector used in an assault, I’m staying.”
Rusk pulled a chair closer.
Beatrice removed one pearl earring, rubbed the indentation in her earlobe, then replaced it. It was such an ordinary gesture that Celeste nearly hated her for it.
“The initiative partnered with a company called Asterion Biologics,” Beatrice said. “They were developing rapid-delivery compounds for seizure control and acute agitation.”
“Human trials?”
“Eventually.”
“Were the trials legal?”
“They were approved in another jurisdiction. Your father invested through intermediaries.”
“Northlight.”
“I don’t know.”
“You said the law firm represented him.”
“On a settlement. One of the research assistants was injured during a handling accident. She claimed the company concealed the compound’s cardiac risks.”
Adrian’s attention sharpened. “What was the compound?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember everything,” Celeste said.
Beatrice looked at her. “AM-47.”
Adrian went very still.
“You know it,” Rusk said.
“I know the designation. It never reached market. The compound could suppress motor activity within seconds, but early formulations caused arrhythmias.”
“The substance in Edwin’s blood?” Celeste asked.
“Possibly. Toxicology will tell us.”
“Why would anyone still have it?”
“If samples survived, they would be controlled research material.”
Beatrice stood. “Your father withdrew funding after the injury.”
“And the settlement?”
“Paid quietly.”
“To whom?”
“A woman named Dr. Miriam Saye.”
Adrian turned away from the fireplace.
Celeste saw his face before he hid it.
“You know her.”
He answered after too long. “She was my residency mentor.”
No one spoke.
Rusk’s voice became precise. “When did you last see Dr. Saye?”
“Six years ago.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you mention this when we found a specialized injector?”
“Because I did not know the compound was AM-47.”
“But you knew the name.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew the victim of the old accident.”
“She wasn’t a victim when I knew her. She was a physician with a damaged hand and a refusal to discuss how it happened.”
Celeste studied him. “Why did you stop seeing her?”
Adrian looked at the floor. “Because she asked me to falsify a patient record.”
Rusk took out his notebook.
“What record?”
“A medication administration log. She said the dosage had been entered incorrectly and needed to be corrected before an audit. I refused. Two weeks later, I learned the original entry had vanished anyway.”
“Did you report it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was thirty-one. She had written every recommendation that mattered in my career. I left the hospital instead.”
Beatrice gave a small, bitter exhale. “Everyone becomes principled after the danger passes.”
Adrian looked at her. “Not everyone.”
Rusk’s phone rang.
He stepped aside, listened, and asked two short questions.
When he ended the call, his expression had changed.
“Toxicology identified AM-47 in Mr. Vale’s blood.”
Celeste looked toward the black library monitor visible through the open doors.
“Then Dr. Saye attacked him.”
“We do not know that.”
“Who else would have access?”
Rusk’s gaze moved around the room. “That is what we’re going to determine.”
Lena’s sister lived in a narrow blue house twelve miles inland, beyond the flooded bridge and the expensive coastal ZIP codes. Celeste drove there herself that afternoon.
She did not tell Beatrice. She did not ask Owen for a driver. She borrowed an estate SUV because her own car was blocked behind sheriff’s vehicles and followed a route her phone insisted did not exist.
A plastic tricycle lay upside down on the front lawn. Wind chimes knocked softly beneath the porch.
Lena opened the door before Celeste could knock a second time.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She wore the same navy sweater. The bruise on her arm had deepened.
“I need to speak with you,” Celeste said.
Lena looked past her toward the road. “The police already did.”
“This isn’t for them.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
A child called from inside the house. Lena turned and answered in Spanish, then stepped onto the porch and pulled the door almost closed behind her.
“My nephew,” she said. “He’s sleeping.”
“I won’t stay long.”
Lena folded her arms.
Celeste had rehearsed an apology during the drive. It sounded obscene now.
“Edwin kept a ledger,” she said. “Your initials are in it beside twelve thousand dollars and the word resolution.”
Lena’s expression did not change, but her fingers tightened at her sleeves.
“Do you know what it means?”
“No.”
“Did he offer you money?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you?”
Lena looked toward the yard.
Celeste lowered her voice. “I am not accusing you.”
“That is how you sound when you are not accusing someone?”
The question was not sarcastic. It was genuinely tired.
Celeste sat on the porch step, though no one had invited her.
Lena remained standing.
“I do not know how to ask questions without sounding as if I expect the wrong answer,” Celeste said.
“That seems like a problem rich people should solve before they employ anyone.”
Celeste looked down at the mud on her borrowed shoes. “Yes.”
A pickup passed on the road, tires hissing over wet pavement.
Lena’s posture eased by a fraction.
“Mr. Vale offered my mother a place in a private cardiac program,” she said.
Celeste looked up.
“When?”
“The day he accused me of taking the pin.”
“What kind of program?”
“He said the family foundation supported a clinic in Boston. New treatment, no cost.”
“In exchange for what?”
“He did not say exchange. He said if I left quietly and signed a confidentiality agreement, he could make sure my mother was evaluated.”
“Twelve thousand dollars?”
“That was the estimated travel and care fund.”
“Did you accept?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because my mother is sick, not stupid.”
Despite everything, Celeste almost smiled.
May you like
Lena did not.
“She asked why a man who thought I was a thief wanted to pay for her heart treatment,” she continued. “I asked Mr. Vale the same question. He told me not to be difficult.”
