Chapter 4 - THE DEAD MAN’S MEDICAL FILE
Madeline had learned something important from her mother.
When caught doing something you could not explain, never rush to explain it.
People expected guilt to move quickly.
Confidence moved slowly.
So Madeline closed the drawer.
Then turned.
“I was looking for aspirin.”
Bradley stared at her.
“In a locked medical office?”
“The door wasn’t locked.”
It had been.
Bradley knew it.
His smile widened.
“That’s interesting.”
Madeline folded her arms.
“Do you always wander the mansion at midnight?”
“I live here.”
“So does half the staff.”
“But half the staff didn’t marry my unconscious cousin yesterday.”
She moved toward the door.
Bradley blocked it.
Madeline stopped.
“Move.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked politely.”
His eyes traveled over her face.
“You know, when Abigail first told me about the marriage, I pictured someone meek.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m not disappointed.”
He stepped closer.
“I’m curious.”
“About?”
“What Christopher would think of you.”
Madeline’s pulse accelerated.
She forced herself not to react.
Bradley continued.
“He hated being manipulated.”
“Then I imagine he’d hate everyone involved.”
“That includes you.”
“It includes me.”
Something about the answer surprised him.
Madeline held his gaze.
“I’m not pretending this marriage was romantic. I did it because my father was drowning in debt. Your grandmother did it because she wanted Christopher’s shares protected. Everyone got something.”
“What did Christopher get?”
Madeline thought about his gray eyes opening in the darkness.
“A wife who isn’t trying to kill him.”
Bradley’s smile disappeared.
Only for a second.
“What a strange thing to say.”
“This family brings it out in me.”
She stepped around him.
This time he let her pass.
“Madeline.”
She stopped.
Bradley’s voice had changed.
“Stay out of rooms that don’t belong to you.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“My name is Harrington now.”
She smiled.
“Apparently half the rooms belong to me.”
Then she walked away before her knees could betray her.
Christopher was awake when she returned.
Evelyn stood nearby.
Madeline locked the bedroom door.
“I found the logs.”
Christopher’s eyes sharpened.
“Proof?”
“Handwritten dosages triple the official amount.”
Evelyn swore softly.
Madeline continued.
“And I found your father’s file.”
Christopher went still.
“What file?”
“Lowell treated him before he died.”
“I know.”
“There are handwritten dosage changes three days before his heart attack.”
Christopher stared at her.
“Medication?”
“I photographed everything.”
She handed Evelyn the phone.
The nurse studied the images.
Her face drained of color.
“This is digoxin.”
“What is that?”
“A heart medication.”
“Dangerous?”
“At the wrong dosage, yes.”
“How dangerous?”
Evelyn looked at Christopher.
“Fatal.”
The room became silent.
Christopher turned his face toward the windows.
Madeline could see the muscle jumping in his jaw.
“Christopher?”
“My father died at fifty-two.”
“I know.”
“They said congenital arrhythmia.”
Evelyn studied another photograph.
“These notes don’t prove murder.”
“But?”
“But if his blood concentration was high…”
Christopher interrupted.
“Autopsy.”
Madeline looked at him.
“There was one?”
“No.”
His voice turned bitter.
“Lowell said unnecessary.”
Madeline felt the pieces aligning.
Lowell had treated Edward.
Edward died suddenly.
Years later, Christopher began investigating Bradley’s stolen money.
Christopher nearly drowned because of a medication error.
Then his brakes failed.
And after surviving the crash, the same doctor kept him sedated.
“What did your father know about Bradley?”
Christopher looked back at her.
“He discovered something before he died.”
“What?”
“He never told me.”
“How do you know?”
“A week before his death, he asked me whether I trusted Bradley’s father.”
“Bradley’s father?”
“My uncle Richard.”
Madeline knew vaguely that Richard Harrington had died two years after Edward.
“Was Richard involved in the company?”
“Chief financial officer.”
“Could the embezzlement have started with him?”
Christopher’s eyes narrowed.
“I thought about it.”
Madeline sat beside him.
“Maybe Bradley didn’t start whatever is happening. Maybe he inherited it.”
Evelyn interrupted.
“There’s something else you need to know.”
They turned.
The nurse looked nervous.
“Dr. Lowell isn’t coming tomorrow.”
“Why?” Madeline asked.
“He texted me. He says he has an emergency in Boston.”
Christopher’s expression darkened.
“He knows.”
Madeline thought about Bradley finding her inside the office.
“Bradley probably told him.”
They needed to move faster.
For the next four days, Christopher’s recovery accelerated.
Without the excessive sedatives, sensation returned gradually.
First his fingers.
Then his wrists.
By the fifth morning, he lifted his right hand from the mattress.
Madeline cried.
She denied it afterward.
Christopher did not.
“You cried.”
“I had dust in my eye.”
“In both?”
“This mansion has terrible housekeeping.”
He smiled.
A real smile.
It transformed him.
Christopher still looked exhausted, his face thinner than photographs taken before the accident, but when he smiled Madeline saw the charismatic businessman magazines had written about.
It made her suddenly aware she was sitting on his bed wearing pajama pants and one of the estate’s oversized robes.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“You’re talking more.”
“Changing subject.”
“You’re still technically my unconscious husband.”
“Technically?”
“Legally.”
His expression softened.
“That bothers you.”
Madeline looked away.
“I don’t know what this marriage is.”
“Neither do I.”
“At least we agree.”
He became serious.
“When this is over, you’ll have a choice.”
She turned back.
“What choice?”
“Stay or leave.”
Something uncomfortable moved through her chest.
“We met five days ago.”
“You married me five days ago.”
“You were asleep.”
“I heard enough.”
Her face heated.
Christopher almost smiled again.
The moment shattered when Abigail entered without knocking.
Madeline froze.
Christopher immediately closed his eyes.
But it was too late.
Abigail had seen him.
The old woman stopped so abruptly the silver tray in her hands rattled.
For a heartbeat, nobody spoke.
Then Christopher opened his eyes.
“Hello, Grandmother.”
The tray crashed to the floor.
Abigail covered her mouth.
Christopher watched her carefully.
Tears filled the eyes of the coldest woman Madeline had ever met.
“My boy.”
She crossed the room and touched his face.
Christopher closed his eyes.
For several seconds, he simply let her.
Then Abigail turned toward Madeline.
“How long?”
“Five days.”
“And you told no one?”
“Christopher asked me not to.”
Abigail looked at her grandson.
“Why?”
Christopher’s gaze hardened.
“Bradley.”
The warmth vanished from Abigail’s face.
Christopher told her everything.
The medication.
The notebook.
The financial investigation.
The medical records.
When he finished, Abigail sat completely still.
Then she said, “There is something I should have told you years ago.”
Christopher frowned.
“What?”
“Your father believed Richard was stealing from Harrington Global.”
Christopher’s face changed.
“You knew?”
“He confronted me the week before he died.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I had no proof.”
“You had six years.”
“I also had another grandson to protect.”
“Bradley.”
Abigail looked away.
Madeline suddenly understood.
Whatever Bradley had become, Abigail had helped create the silence around him.
Abigail rose.
“There is a safe in your father’s old study.”
Christopher stared at her.
“What safe?”
“One only Edward and I knew existed.”
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never opened it?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Edward changed the combination before he died.”
Christopher’s expression hardened.
“What does this have to do with Bradley?”
Abigail looked directly at him.
“Because the last thing your father said to me was, ‘If anything happens to me, Christopher will know where to look.’”
Two hours later, Madeline, Abigail, and Evelyn helped Christopher into a wheelchair.
It was the first time he had left his bedroom awake in nine months.
They moved through a servants’ corridor to avoid cameras.
Edward Harrington’s old study had been preserved almost exactly as he left it.
Behind a walnut bookshelf they found the safe.
Christopher stared at the keypad.
Then he whispered, “My birthday.”
Wrong.
“His anniversary.”
Wrong.
Madeline looked around.
“What would your father assume only you knew?”
Christopher stared at the desk.
Then he saw an old framed photograph.
A little boy sitting beside Edward on a sailboat.
Christopher smiled faintly.
“The boat.”
“What?”
“Her name was Grace.”
He entered the registration number printed on the photograph’s frame.
The safe clicked.
Inside was one envelope.
One flash drive.
And an old voice recorder.
Christopher picked up the recorder.
His hand shook.
He pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Edward Harrington’s voice emerged.
“If Christopher is hearing this, I was right.”
Everyone froze.
Edward continued.
“Richard knows I found the offshore accounts.”
Abigail began to cry.
Then came another sentence.
“Marcus Lowell is helping him.”
Christopher’s face went white.
But Edward wasn’t finished.
“There is one more person involved. Someone Christopher trusts completely.”
The recording crackled.
Madeline leaned closer.
Edward spoke the name.
And Christopher’s entire body went rigid.
Because the final person his father accused was the one person Christopher had never suspected.
His own grandmother.
May you like
Abigail Harrington.
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