Chapter 5 - The Glass in the Sink
I didn't wait for Gideon to finish his argument with the lawyers.
I turned away from the library gallery and moved down the second-floor corridor toward the master medical suite at the far end of the west wing.
The master bedroom was a vast, high-ceilinged room lined with dark mahogany paneling, heavy silk drapes, and state-of-the-art medical equipment that looked completely out of place against the antique furniture.
On the specialized hospital bed sat Senior Antonio Marquetti.
He looked smaller than he had two weeks ago. His skin was the color of old parchment, drawn tightly over his sharp cheekbones and sunken temples. A high-flow oxygen cannula rested beneath his nose, and the steady, rhythmic whoosh-click of his suction pump was the only sound in the room.
His dark eyes—the same intense, deep brown eyes as Gideon’s—swiveled toward the door as I stepped inside.
He saw my arm in the sling, the plaster cast extending up to my elbow, and the bandage above my left eyebrow.
His eyelids fluttered. A long, raspy breath passed through his lips.
“I’m okay, Don Antonio,” I said softly, walking over to the right side of his bed with my good hand resting on the bed rail. “It takes more than three stone steps to get rid of a county ER nurse.”
The old man’s right hand—his only functional hand—shifted slightly against the white duvet. His fingers tapped three times against the cotton sheet: dot-dot-dot.
It was our private signal. Three taps meant check the tray.
I looked over at the medical cart parked beside his monitoring equipment.
The cart had been cleaned by the morning shift replacement nurse—a temporary agency worker named Sarah whom Victoria had personally called in at seven o'clock.
On the lower shelf of the cart sat a clean glass tumbler, an opened packet of oral electrolyte powder, and a small silver spoon.
I picked up the spoon with my right hand and brought it to my nose.
The faint, unmistakable scent of bitter almonds cut through the smell of eucalyptus and rubbing alcohol.
Potassium cyanide.
My blood ran cold. The oil on the staircase hadn't just been an attempt to injure me; it had been designed to create absolute chaos in the lower house for thirty minutes—long enough for someone to enter this room while the backup staff was distracted by my scream, slip a lethal dose of cardiac toxin into the old man’s morning water glass, and leave it for the replacement nurse to administer.
The plan was terrifyingly simple. If Antonio died while a temporary agency nurse was on duty, the death would be attributed to his pre-existing heart condition and the incompetence of a disorganized medical team.
I looked at Antonio. His dark eyes were fixed on mine, completely clear, sharp, and filled with an ancient, iron terror.
He knew what had been put on that cart. He had watched someone prepare it while he lay helpless in his bed, unable to scream, unable to move his arms, unable to do anything except wait for me to come back up the stairs.
“They didn't feed it to you,” I whispered, looking at the clean, unused straw beside the glass.
Antonio blinked twice. No.
“Because you refused to open your mouth for the new nurse.”
Antonio blinked twice again. No.
He had saved his own life by simply locking his jaw against the replacement worker until Walter returned to the room.
I grabbed a clean plastic specimen bag from the cart drawer, dropped the silver spoon and the glass inside, and sealed the top with a heavy adhesive strip.
“Walter,” I said, turning to the butler who had just entered the room behind me, his face grey with terror. “Call Dr. Harrison’s private lab directly. Tell him I have a Class-A chemical sample that needs an immediate toxicological screen.”
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“Is it...” Walter couldn't finish the sentence.
“It’s the reason Julian had a yellow stain on his cuff,” I said, tucking the sealed specimen bag into my jacket pocket. “Now let’s go down to the library and finish this before Victoria’s lawyers sign those power-of-attorney documents.”
