Chapter 3 - A DRUG I NEVER TOOK
I read the message four times before I showed Ethan.
His face did not change until he reached the name at the end.
B. CROSS.
"Don't respond yet," he said.
"Why?"
"Because if this is really Benjamin Cross, he has been hiding for a reason."
"And if it isn't?"
"Then someone wants us to believe he is alive."
I stared at the fetal monitor.
Our daughter had begun moving again around midnight.
Each tiny kick felt like a message from inside me.
Still here.
Still here.
Still here.
I rested my palm over the movement.
"Dad said Grandma thought someone tried to kill her."
Ethan nodded.
"He also knew about the soup before anyone told him."
"You think he drugged me."
"I think we don't guess."
That was one of the reasons I had married him.
Ethan could be furious and still separate anger from evidence.
I could not.
Not that night.
Every childhood memory was becoming contaminated.
My father's hand on my bicycle seat when I learned to ride.
My mother teaching me how to frost a birthday cake.
Lauren crawling into my bed during thunderstorms.
Grandma Eleanor sitting at the head of the Thanksgiving table and watching all of us with those sharp gray eyes.
Had she known what we were capable of becoming?
At two in the morning, Dr. Shah returned with the repeat lab results.
The compound was present again.
The hospital's toxicology consultant estimated I had been exposed several hours before the kick.
"Can you tell how?" I asked.
"Not from bloodwork alone."
"Could it have been in food?"
"Possibly."
"Tea?"
"Possibly."
"Soup?"
"Possibly."
I hated that word.
Possibly left room for every person I loved.
Dr. Shah sat beside the bed.
"Rachel, I want you to understand something."
"Okay."
"The medication we found can have legitimate medical uses, but you had no prescription and no clinical reason for it today."
"Could it hurt the baby?"
"At the detected level, it could contribute to uterine irritability and changes in blood pressure."
Ethan's hand closed around the bedrail.
"Combined with blunt trauma?"
"Combined with trauma, it increases our concern."
My throat tightened.
"Was someone trying to make the kick worse?"
Dr. Shah chose her words carefully.
"I cannot determine intent."
"But medically?"
"Medically, two separate risk factors occurred within the same window."
Two separate risk factors.
A drug I never took.
A kick Lauren claimed was accidental.
The trust papers on my mother's lap.
My father's sentence about the birth making everything permanent.
I looked at Ethan.
"We need the mug tested."
"Already requested."
"The leftovers from lunch."
"Police are securing the house."
I almost laughed.
My parents had spent years complaining that police were too aggressive whenever poor neighborhoods were involved and not aggressive enough whenever their own business properties were vandalized.
Now officers were sealing my mother's soup in evidence bags.
At three fifteen, Caleb's mother arrived.
Aunt Melissa was my father's younger sister, and she entered the room with the expression of a woman who had driven forty minutes while rehearsing a murder.
She hugged Caleb first.
Then she came to my bed and took my hand.
"I am so sorry."
"You didn't do anything."
Her eyes filled.
"I let Martin scare me for years."
Caleb looked at her.
"Mom."
"Not now, baby."
She pulled a chair closer.
"Rachel, there is something you should know about Benjamin Cross."
Ethan and I exchanged a glance.
"What?"
Melissa looked toward the door.
"He didn't disappear because of an accident."
"How do you know?"
"Because Grandma told me he was leaving."
My pulse jumped.
"When?"
"A week before he vanished."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"She made me promise."
"Why?"
Melissa rubbed her palms together.
"She said someone had been reading her legal mail."
Caleb sat on the windowsill.
"Who?"
"She didn't say."
"Did she say why Benjamin had to leave?" Ethan asked.
Melissa nodded.
"To protect the original trust."
I felt cold despite the blankets.
"Original?"
"Grandma believed someone was preparing a replacement document."
"A forged trust?"
"Or a forged amendment."
Melissa looked at me.
"She said if anything happened to her, the person who benefited most from the replacement would tell us who did it."
I thought of Lauren.
If I died without a surviving child, Lauren's branch received the controlling shares.
"Lauren benefited."
Melissa's mouth twisted.
"So did Martin."
"How?"
"If the descendant clause was removed, he remained trustee with broad voting authority."
"Until when?"
"Until his death."
A soft knock interrupted us.
A hospital security officer entered.
"Mr. Mercer?"
Ethan stood.
"Yes."
"There is a woman in the lobby asking for Mrs. Mercer."
"Who?"
"She says she's a private nurse."
Melissa went pale.
"What's her name?"
The guard checked his radio note.
"Lydia Monroe."
Melissa covered her mouth.
"She took care of Grandma."
Lydia came upstairs ten minutes later.
She was in her late fifties, with silver threaded through dark hair and a worn leather satchel over one shoulder.
I had not seen her since my grandmother's funeral.
She did not hug me.
She did not offer sympathy.
She locked the door behind her and asked Ethan to close the blinds.
"Mrs. Mercer," she said.
"Your grandmother expected this."
I stared at her.
"Expected what?"
"An attack before the baby was born."
My skin prickled.
"I wasn't pregnant when she died."
"She expected you would be eventually."
Lydia opened her satchel.
"And she knew Martin would understand the clause the moment you announced a pregnancy."
She removed a small spiral notebook.
The cover was faded blue.
I recognized my grandmother's handwriting on the first page.
Dates.
Times.
Medication names.
Symptoms.
Visitors.
"What is this?"
"A log I kept during the last four months of Eleanor's life."
Lydia turned to a page marked with a paperclip.
One entry had been underlined twice.
MARCH 11 - 7:40 P.M. - MARTIN BROUGHT TEA.
8:10 P.M. - ELEANOR DIZZY, VOMITING, BP LOW.
9:15 P.M. - ER ADVISED.
MARTIN REFUSED AMBULANCE, SAID SHE WAS "DRAMATIC."
My stomach clenched.
"Did Grandma go to the hospital?"
"Not that night."
"Why not?"
Lydia looked ashamed.
"Your father dismissed me for the evening."
"You left her?"
"I was an employee."
"You left her with him?"
"Yes."
The word came out like a confession.
"The next morning, she called me from a neighbor's phone."
"Why a neighbor's phone?"
"Because her phone was gone."
Lydia flipped three pages.
"She told me Martin said she had imagined the whole episode."
Ethan pointed at another line.
"What's this code?"
Several entries contained the letters R-B-S followed by numbers.
Lydia's eyes narrowed.
"Random blood sugar."
"She was diabetic?"
"No."
"Then why were you checking it?"
"Because Eleanor asked me to."
"Why?"
Lydia looked at me.
"She thought someone was tampering with her food."
I stopped breathing for a second.
"Did you prove it?"
"No."
"Then why are you here now?"
Lydia reached into the satchel again.
This time she removed a sealed plastic pouch.
Inside was a small silver key.
"Because Eleanor gave me this three days before she died."
"What does it open?"
"I don't know."
"Then how does it help us?"
"She told me I would know when to give it to you."
"When?"
Lydia's gaze dropped to my stomach.
"If someone tried to stop the baby."
The room went silent.
Caleb whispered a curse under his breath.
Ethan took a slow breath.
"Where has this key been?"
"In a safe-deposit box under my name."
"Did anyone know?"
"Benjamin Cross."
My phone vibrated on the bedside table.
Another message from the unknown number.
THIS IS BENJAMIN.
DO NOT TRUST LYDIA UNTIL SHE TELLS YOU WHAT SHE REMOVED FROM ELEANOR'S ROOM THE NIGHT SHE DIED.
I looked up at Lydia.
She was watching my face.
"Who texted you?" she asked.
I turned the phone over.
"What did you remove from my grandmother's room the night she died?"
Lydia's expression collapsed.
Aunt Melissa stood.
"Lydia?"
For several seconds, the nurse said nothing.
Then she reached into the deepest pocket of her satchel.
She pulled out a prescription bottle with my father's name on the label.
"This," she whispered.
May you like
"I found it under Eleanor's bed."
THEY NEEDED MY BABY GONE BEFORE THE TRUST BECAME PERMANENT
