Chapter 3 - What Happened After the Medicine
The laboratory called at 2:13 in the morning.
Lorenzo answered on the first ring.
Dr. Keller stood across the study.
Nurse Vale sat beside the fireplace under guard.
Claire and Emma had been moved to a guest suite for the night.
Lucas remained upstairs with two newly arrived physicians from a hospital in Boston—men Lorenzo had chosen personally and who had never worked with Keller before.
“What did you find?” Lorenzo asked.
The toxicologist spoke carefully.
“Mr. Duca, your son's blood contains digoxin.”
Keller closed his eyes.
Lorenzo stared at him.
“How much?”
“Significantly above therapeutic range.”
“How long has he been receiving it?”
“We cannot determine duration from one sample.”
“Could it explain his symptoms?”
“Some of them, absolutely.”
“Could it kill him?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Lorenzo lowered the phone.
The room became silent.
Vale began crying.
“I told you.”
Lorenzo looked at Keller.
The doctor appeared older than he had an hour earlier.
“You prescribed it originally,” Lorenzo said.
“Yes.”
“You discontinued it.”
“Yes.”
“Yet someone kept giving it.”
Keller nodded slowly.
“You were supplying a second bottle.”
“No.”
Vale stood.
“You told me it came from your private supply.”
Keller turned toward her.
“I never said that.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I told you nutritional supplements were stored separately.”
Vale shook her head.
“You handed me the bottle yourself.”
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
Keller stared.
Lorenzo watched them.
One was lying.
Possibly both.
“Enough.”
The room fell silent.
Lorenzo placed Isabella's notebook on the desk.
Keller's eyes moved toward it.
Only briefly.
But Lorenzo saw.
“You recognize this?”
“No.”
“You looked at it.”
“I looked because you put something on the desk.”
Lorenzo opened to the page containing A.K.
Keller stepped closer.
“What is this?”
“My wife's handwriting.”
Keller read the lines.
His face changed.
“You think A.K. is me.”
“Shouldn't I?”
“I treated Lucas before Isabella died.”
“So?”
“So she might have written my initials for a dozen reasons.”
Lorenzo leaned forward.
“Then explain this one.”
A.K. refuses second opinion.
Keller read it.
“That happened.”
“Why?”
“Because the second opinion Isabella wanted came from a doctor whose proposed treatment I considered dangerous.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Samuel Reeves.”
Lorenzo recognized the name vaguely.
“Where is he?”
Keller hesitated.
“I don't know.”
“Find him.”
“He disappeared from medical practice.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
The timing felt wrong.
Too perfect.
Lorenzo looked toward his security chief, Marco.
“Find Reeves.”
Marco nodded.
Then Lorenzo turned to Vale.
“You said Lucas always gets the liquid from the second bottle?”
“Not always.”
“How often?”
“Maybe twice a week.”
“Who decides?”
“I receive instructions.”
“From Keller?”
Vale shook her head slowly.
“Not directly.”
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“Printed dosing sheets.”
“Where?”
“They appear in Lucas's medication binder.”
“Who has access?”
“Doctors. Nurses. Household medical staff.”
“How many?”
“Eleven people.”
Eleven.
Too many.
Lorenzo felt anger rise, but beneath the anger something else formed.
Shame.
His mansion had walls twelve feet high.
Armed men at every gate.
Cameras covering every entrance.
Yet someone had been standing beside his child's bed poisoning him while Lorenzo spent his nights hunting enemies outside the house.
He had guarded the wrong doors.
The study door opened.
One of the Boston doctors entered.
Dr. Maya Chen.
Forty-two.
Calm voice.
No visible fear of Lorenzo.
He respected that immediately.
“Lucas is awake,” she said.
“How is he?”
“Stable.”
“What do we do?”
“We stop the digoxin, hydrate him, monitor his rhythm and treat complications.”
“Will he recover?”
Chen paused.
“From the toxicity? Possibly.”
“From everything else?”
“We need to reconsider what ‘everything else’ actually is.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“His chart assumes an autoimmune disease.”
“You disagree?”
“I think his history deserves to be rebuilt from the beginning.”
Keller stiffened.
“Dr. Chen—”
She ignored him.
“Some symptoms predate the suspected toxicity. Others do not. Your son may have a genuine underlying condition, but someone has complicated the picture.”
Lorenzo's voice was quiet.
“Can you save him?”
Chen looked directly at him.
“I think we finally have a better chance than we had yesterday.”
For the first time in months, hope entered the room.
Small.
Fragile.
Dangerous.
But real.
Upstairs, Lucas opened his eyes when Lorenzo entered.
Emma sat in the chair beside the bed.
Lorenzo stopped.
“What are you doing here?”
Emma looked guilty.
Lucas answered.
“I asked her.”
“You should be sleeping.”
“So should she.”
Emma smiled.
“I don't sleep early.”
“It is almost three in the morning.”
“I know.”
Claire appeared behind him.
“I'm sorry.”
Lorenzo surprised himself.
“It's fine.”
Emma held a deck of children's cards.
“We were playing animals.”
Lucas looked more alert than before.
Still pale.
Still weak.
But his eyes were clearer.
Lorenzo sat beside him.
“How do you feel?”
Lucas thought.
“Different.”
“Better?”
“A little.”
Lorenzo brushed his hair back.
Lucas looked toward Emma.
“She says the medicine was making me sick.”
Lorenzo gave her a look.
Emma immediately studied the cards.
Lucas continued.
“Was she right?”
Lorenzo had spent his life deciding what truths other people deserved.
But he could not lie again.
“We think one of your medicines was wrong.”
“Did the doctor make a mistake?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
“We don't know yet.”
Lucas absorbed that.
Then he asked the question Lorenzo feared.
“Did somebody do it on purpose?”
Emma stopped moving.
Claire looked away.
Lorenzo took his son's hand.
“I don't know.”
“But you'll find out.”
“Yes.”
Lucas gave the smallest smile.
“You always find people.”
Normally the sentence would have sounded like praise.
Tonight it sounded like an accusation.
Lorenzo squeezed his hand.
“Yes.”
Later, after Lucas finally slept, Emma sat near the window drawing.
Lorenzo noticed the page.
A house.
Trees.
A garden.
A woman near a car.
“What are you drawing?”
Emma covered it.
“Nothing.”
“Everyone in this house says that when they're drawing something.”
She smiled slightly.
Lorenzo sat opposite her.
“Why did you notice Lucas got worse after the medicine?”
Emma became serious.
“My mom got sick.”
“You told us.”
“She took heart medicine too.”
Lorenzo felt a chill.
“What kind?”
“I don't know.”
“She died?”
Emma nodded.
“How old were you?”
“Four.”
“Do you remember much?”
“Some.”
She looked at her stuffed rabbit.
“She used to say one medicine made her feel worse. Nobody believed her.”
Lorenzo studied the child.
“What was your mother's name?”
Emma answered.
“Rachel Bell.”
From the doorway, Claire dropped a glass.
It shattered on the floor.
Emma jumped.
Lorenzo looked toward Claire.
Her face had gone white.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Lorenzo stood.
“Claire.”
She stared at him.
Then at Emma.
Finally she whispered.
“Bell wasn't Rachel's last name.”
Lorenzo waited.
Claire's voice shook.
“She changed it before Emma was born.”
“From what?”
Claire swallowed.
“Keller.”
The room seemed to narrow.
Lorenzo slowly turned toward Emma.
“Rachel Keller?”
Claire nodded.
“Dr. Adrian Keller's daughter.”
And suddenly the mystery inside the mansion became much larger.
Because Emma had not arrived at the Duca estate by coincidence.
May you like
Someone had sent her there.
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