Chapter 7 - The Hearing That Never Finished
Evelyn survived the courtroom collapse.
Barely.
The patch contained medication.
It also contained something else.
Not enough to kill her instantly.
Enough to make her dizzy.
Disoriented.
Weak.
Exactly the condition Alessandra’s attorneys had spent the morning arguing proved Evelyn could no longer manage her own affairs.
The guardianship hearing was suspended.
Nicholas stood in the hospital corridor while Marco read the laboratory report.
“Tampered.”
Nicholas closed his eyes.
Claire sat twenty feet away with a paper cup of coffee.
She had not slept.
Neither had Nicholas.
He entered Evelyn’s room at sunrise.
Claire remained outside.
Five minutes later he returned.
“She asked for you.”
Claire entered.
Evelyn looked tiny beneath the blankets.
But her eyes were sharp.
“Bad coffee?”
Claire lifted the cup.
“Terrible.”
“Good.”
Claire sat beside her.
Evelyn whispered, “I’m hungry.”
Claire almost cried.
She refused to show it.
“What sounds good?”
“Toast.”
“With?”
“Butter.”
“How reckless.”
Evelyn smiled.
“And jam.”
Claire stood.
Nicholas blocked the doorway.
“Hospital food?”
“No.”
“Where are you going?”
“Kitchen.”
“No.”
Claire stared at him.
“Your mother wants toast.”
“I’ll send someone.”
“She asked me.”
He lowered his voice.
“You were almost killed twice.”
“And yet I continue to be extremely difficult to kill.”
“Claire.”
“Nicholas.”
Evelyn spoke from the bed.
“Stop flirting and get my toast.”
Silence.
Claire turned red.
Nicholas looked offended.
“We are not flirting.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Then you’re both worse at it than I thought.”
Claire escaped to the kitchen.
Nicholas followed.
“You don’t need to come.”
“Yes, I do.”
“For toast?”
“For you.”
Claire stopped walking.
He did too.
For one moment the hospital disappeared.
No guards.
No poisoned spoons.
No family war.
Claire looked at him.
“That sounded almost nice.”
Nicholas’s voice softened.
“I’m trying.”
The honesty frightened her more than danger did.
She continued walking.
They found bread.
Butter.
Strawberry jam.
Claire prepared one slice.
Nicholas watched.
“You inspect everything.”
“Yes.”
“You taste everything.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t trust anyone.”
Claire spread jam.
“Look who I work for.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
She looked at him.
“Trust is expensive.”
“Who taught you that?”
“An ex-fiancé.”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened.
“What did he do?”
Claire laughed.
“Why do men always ask that like they’re about to challenge someone to a duel?”
“What did he do?”
“Spent eighteen months sleeping with my business partner.”
Nicholas went still.
“I’m sorry.”
“I kept the mixer.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Industrial stand mixer. Six quarts. Beautiful machine.”
“You divided appliances after infidelity?”
“I had priorities.”
Nicholas laughed.
Actually laughed.
Claire stared.
The sound changed his face completely.
Younger.
Warmer.
Human.
Then his phone rang.
Marco.
Nicholas answered.
“What?”
His laughter vanished.
“When?”
He listened.
“We’re coming.”
Claire knew.
“What happened?”
“The pharmacy records disappeared.”
All of them.
Every electronic prescription issued to Evelyn in the previous year had been deleted.
Backup servers had been physically destroyed overnight.
But Alessandra made one mistake.
She underestimated old women.
Evelyn kept paper.
Receipts.
Letters.
Birthday cards.
Menus from important dinners.
Nicholas returned to the estate and found Claire sitting on Evelyn’s bedroom floor surrounded by boxes.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I’m not the patient.”
“You’ve slept four hours in three days.”
“Five.”
“That’s worse.”
Claire held up an envelope.
“I found something.”
Nicholas crouched.
A pharmacy invoice.
Eight months old.
Authorized by Alessandra.
Medication delivered through Caruso Foundation Health.
Signed by Dr. Helena Voss.
Nicholas frowned.
“Helena?”
Claire looked closer.
“No.”
“What?”
“The signature.”
“What about it?”
Claire pulled out another document from Michael Caruso’s ledger.
“Different.”
Nicholas compared them.
The signatures were similar.
But not identical.
“Forgeries.”
“Yes.”
Someone had used Helena’s name to approve the prescriptions.
Claire searched the box.
Another invoice.
Another.
Then one sheet with initials.
Approved: A.C.
Nicholas stared.
“Alessandra.”
“Maybe.”
“No. That’s her handwriting.”
Claire looked at him.
“You know?”
“She sent me birthday cards for thirty-nine years.”
He sounded sad.
Not triumphant.
Claire remembered that villains rarely began as villains to the people they betrayed.
Once, Alessandra had probably held Nicholas as a baby.
Once, she had probably brought cake.
That was what made family treachery cruel.
There had been love before the knife.
Marco entered.
“We found the fake orderly.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Bus station.”
They questioned him at the estate.
His real name was Aaron Pike.
Twenty-seven.
Former EMT.
Heavy gambling debt.
He admitted someone paid him fifty thousand dollars to enter the estate and alter Damian’s IV.
“Who?”
Aaron shook his head.
“A woman.”
“Alessandra?”
“I never met her.”
Nicholas leaned forward.
“How did she contact you?”
“Messages.”
“Voice?”
“Once.”
Claire asked, “What did she sound like?”
Aaron frowned.
“Older.”
“Accent?”
“No.”
“Anything distinctive?”
He thought.
“She coughed.”
Nicholas looked irritated.
Claire continued.
“What kind?”
“What?”
“Dry? Wet? Throat clearing?”
Nicholas stared at her.
Aaron answered.
“Like she was trying not to.”
Claire remembered someone.
At the estate.
A person who coughed often.
The nurse?
No.
Rosa?
No.
Then she remembered.
Courtroom.
Alessandra’s attorney.
No.
Kitchen.
The pastry chef.
No.
Claire’s face changed.
“What?”
Nicholas asked.
“She was at the dinner.”
“Who?”
Claire stood.
“Your mother’s private physician.”
Dr. Margaret Hale.
Sixty-five.
Trusted family doctor.
She had treated Evelyn for eighteen years.
She prescribed the tonic.
She recommended the foundation pharmacy.
She had written the medical reports later used in the guardianship petition.
Nicholas went completely still.
“She touched my mother every day.”
Helena’s dying warning echoed.
Someone your mother trusts enough to let touch her every day.
They drove to Dr. Hale’s apartment.
Empty.
Closets cleared.
Computer gone.
Passport missing.
But a framed photograph remained on the desk.
Dr. Hale.
Alessandra.
And Michael Caruso.
Thirty years earlier.
Claire turned the frame over.
A handwritten sentence covered the back.
Some families are inherited. Others are chosen.
Nicholas stared.
Then Marco called.
“Boss, you need to get back.”
“Why?”
“Evelyn received a package.”
“From whom?”
“No return address.”
“What’s inside?”
Marco hesitated.
“A photograph of Claire.”
Claire’s blood went cold.
Nicholas asked, “What photograph?”
“Taken yesterday.”
“Where?”
“At the hospital.”
Marco’s voice dropped.
“There’s a red X across her face.”
Nicholas slowly looked at Claire.
For the first time, she saw pure fear in his eyes.
May you like
Not for his mother.
For her.
