Chương 5
Howard Bell leaned back. “How do you know?”
“I made a copy in December because Mrs. Evelyn asked me to file one in the household safe. That version required her physician and independent attorney to certify capacity concerns before authority transferred. Yesterday’s document did not.”
“Where is the copy?” Andrew asked.
“In the safe.”
“And you waited until now to mention it?”
Beatrice’s face colored. “I found it this morning.”
Rosa could hear the office ventilation humming.
Andrew asked, “Why would Celeste replace the document?”
No one answered.
Priya closed the blue folder. “What is the red folder?”
Andrew looked at Rosa.
Rosa said, “Evelyn told me about it.”
Priya waited.
“It contained her real papers,” Andrew said. “It is missing from her desk.”
“Who had access?”
“Family, Beatrice, two senior staff members, and the private nurse.”
“Security cameras?”
“Not inside the suite.”
“Entry logs?”
“The locks are mechanical.”
Priya sighed. “Of course they are.”
Andrew’s phone vibrated. He read the screen and stood abruptly.
“My mother has been taken to the hospital.”
Rosa rose. “What happened?”
“Her blood pressure dropped.”
“Who was with her?”
Andrew did not answer immediately.
“Celeste,” Beatrice said.
The emergency department placed Evelyn in a curtained bay under observation. Her blood pressure stabilized after fluids, but she remained unusually drowsy.
Andrew stood beside the bed while a physician reviewed a medication list on a tablet.
“Her chart shows two doses of lorazepam since last evening,” the physician said.
Andrew looked at the private nurse, Dana Pike, who stood near the sink.
“Why?” he asked.
Dana twisted the strap of her watch. “She was agitated.”
“When?”
“After the incident. She wouldn’t sleep.”
“I spoke to her at nine. She was tired, not agitated.”
“She became distressed later.”
“Who authorized the second dose?”
Dana glanced at Celeste.
Celeste was seated beside the window, still wearing the same perfect posture. “It was prescribed as needed.”
The physician looked at the record. “One dose every twelve hours as needed. These were administered seven hours apart.”
Dana swallowed. “I may have entered the first time incorrectly.”
“Which time is incorrect?” Andrew asked.
“I need to check my notes.”
“Check them.”
Celeste rose. “This is not the place for an interrogation.”
“It became the place when my mother arrived unconscious.”
“She is not unconscious.”
Evelyn opened her eyes slightly. “People keep saying things near me as if near means not to me.”
Andrew leaned over her. “Mother.”
She frowned at him. “You look terrible.”
The physician hid a smile.
Andrew took her hand. “Do you know where you are?”
“A hospital where the coffee costs six dollars and tastes free.”
“What day is it?”
Evelyn closed her eyes again. “The day after your wife tried to make me sign my house away.”
Celeste stepped backward.
Dana stared at the floor.
The physician tapped the tablet and said, “I’m going to request a geriatric consult and suspend nonessential sedating medication until we complete a review.”
Celeste’s voice sharpened. “You cannot change her treatment because of one confused statement.”
The physician turned. “I can change it because her dosing record is inconsistent and she presented with hypotension and sedation.”
Andrew looked at Dana. “You’re done.”
Dana’s chin lifted. “You don’t employ me. The agency does.”
“Then the agency can explain why its nurse falsified a medication time.”
“I said I may have made an entry error.”
“Andrew,” Celeste said.
He turned on her. “Did you tell Dana to medicate her?”
Celeste’s expression hardened. “Your mother was screaming.”
“She doesn’t scream.”
“She did last night.”
Evelyn opened one eye. “I called you a thief. That is not screaming. That is vocabulary.”
A nurse outside the curtain coughed to cover a laugh.
Celeste looked at Evelyn with a weariness so naked that for one moment she seemed less cruel than exhausted.
“You have been calling me that for months,” she said.
Evelyn’s mouth tightened. “Perhaps you should consider why.”
Celeste picked up her handbag. “I will not be spoken to this way.”
“No,” Andrew said. “You will stay.”
She stopped.
The physician looked uncomfortable. “Family discussions should happen outside.”
Celeste left anyway.
Andrew followed her into the corridor.
Rosa was not at the hospital. She learned about the medication from Beatrice that evening, after Priya had advised her not to contact the family directly.
“You were right,” Beatrice said.
Rosa sat on the apartment stairwell because Lourdes was watching television loudly and Eli was doing homework at the kitchen table.
“About what?”
“Something was wrong.”
“That isn’t the same as saying I was right to grab her.”
“No.”
Rosa waited.
Beatrice exhaled. “You want me to say it.”
“I want someone to.”
“You were right to grab her.”
The words brought no comfort.
“Is Evelyn okay?”
“She’s awake. The hospital is keeping her overnight.”
“Did they find the folder?”
“No.”
“Did you check Celeste’s room?”
“I’m not authorized to search her belongings.”
“Andrew is.”
“He won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because a marriage is not a hotel room. People do not become strangers simply because one of them may have done something terrible.”
Rosa looked through the stairwell window at traffic crawling along the avenue. Brake lights glowed in a long red chain.
“Did Celeste post the video?” she asked.
“We traced the first upload to an account created yesterday. The email attached to it is false.”
“That was fast.”
“Andrew hired a firm.”
“Of course.”
“They found that the video file was sent from a guest Wi-Fi address at the house.”
“So someone there.”
“Yes.”
“Which phone recorded it?”
“We don’t know.”
Rosa rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Beatrice said, “There is something else. Celeste’s attorney contacted the staffing agency. They are reviewing your placement eligibility.”
“For what?”
“Violence in the workplace.”
Rosa stood so quickly the metal stair rail rang beneath her hand. “You said I was suspended from Mercer House. Not from every job.”
“I know.”
“She’s trying to make sure I can’t work anywhere.”
“I know.”
May you like
“Stop saying you know.”
Beatrice became quiet.
