Chapter 2 - The Purple Glass
Dr. Mara Quinn arrived at the Duca estate at 12:52 a.m.
She came through the front doors wearing jeans beneath a raincoat, her dark hair twisted into an untidy knot, carrying a black medical case in one hand and irritation in her eyes.
“I was asleep,” she said.
Lorenzo stood in the entrance hall with Emma beside him.
“I know.”
“You said it couldn’t wait.”
“It can’t.”
Mara saw the waxed packet sealed beneath an overturned crystal glass on the table.
Her expression changed immediately.
“Who touched it?”
“Emma.”
Mara looked down.
Emma hugged her cloth doll.
“I washed my hands.”
Grace Carter came rushing from the servants’ corridor at that exact moment.
“Emma?”
She crossed the marble floor so quickly that she nearly slipped.
Grace wore an old gray sweatshirt over pajama pants. Her brown hair was loose around her shoulders, and fear appeared instantly when she saw her daughter standing beside Lorenzo after midnight.
“What happened?”
Emma lifted both arms.
Grace scooped her up.
“You were supposed to be in bed.”
“Brother Lucas was hurting.”
Grace looked at Lorenzo.
His face told her this was not about a child wandering out of bed.
“What happened?”
Lorenzo pointed toward the table.
“Your daughter found that inside Lucas’s pillow.”
Grace stared.
Mara interrupted before anyone could say more.
“I need the pillow untouched. I need whatever Lucas drank today, every medication he received, the containers they came from, and a complete list of everyone who entered that room during the past seventy-two hours.”
Lorenzo looked at Daniel.
“Lock down the house.”
Grace stiffened.
“Lock down?”
“No one leaves.”
Something in Lorenzo’s tone made the two nearby security men move immediately.
Mara crouched in front of Emma.
“Sweetheart, can I ask you something?”
Emma nodded.
“You said Lucas gets a purple drink.”
“Every morning.”
“Who gives it to him?”
“The pretty lady.”
“Vivian?”
Emma nodded.
“Does anyone else bring it?”
Emma considered this seriously.
“Sometimes Mr. Simon.”
Lorenzo’s head turned.
Simon Hale was the estate’s private pharmacist.
He had prepared Lucas’s specialized medications for nearly two years.
Mara noticed Lorenzo’s expression.
“Don’t decide anything yet.”
“My son is being poisoned.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know someone hid powder inside his pillow.”
“You know someone hid a packet. That’s evidence. It isn’t a conclusion.”
Lorenzo leaned closer.
“My son weighs thirty-eight pounds.”
Mara held his stare.
“And if you terrify the person responsible before I know what they used, we may lose the fastest path to saving him.”
That stopped him.
Mara stood.
“Take me upstairs.”
Lucas was asleep when they entered his room.
The sight of him always disturbed Lorenzo more than he admitted.
His son had once been a loud, laughing toddler who chased pigeons across the courtyard and screamed whenever someone tried to wash his hair.
Now he seemed too small for the bed.
His cheeks were pale. Dark shadows rested beneath his eyes. A cardiac monitor traced a green line beside him. An IV entered the back of one thin hand.
Vivian sat in a chair near the window.
She stood immediately.
“Lorenzo?”
Her black hair fell over one shoulder. Even at one in the morning, Vivian somehow looked composed.
Then she saw Mara’s medical case.
“What happened?”
Lorenzo watched her face.
Nothing.
No obvious fear.
No panic.
“The pillow,” he said.
Vivian glanced toward Lucas.
“What about it?”
“The one you changed tonight.”
A pause.
Small.
Almost invisible.
“I changed his pillowcase.”
Emma whispered from Grace’s arms.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Emma pointed.
“You took the whole pillow.”
Vivian looked at the child.
Grace instinctively pulled Emma closer.
Vivian recovered quickly.
“She may have seen me replacing one of the orthopedic pillows. Lucas complained that his neck hurt.”
“Where is the old one?” Lorenzo asked.
“The linen room, I assume.”
“You assume?”
Vivian’s lips tightened.
“I don’t personally track the laundry.”
Mara crossed to a small refrigerator beside Lucas’s medication cabinet.
Inside were several bottles.
Clear liquids.
Electrolytes.
Compounded syrups.
Then she saw a small glass bottle containing a deep violet solution.
She held it up.
“This?”
Emma nodded.
“That’s the bad one.”
Vivian exhaled.
“It’s a nutritional supplement.”
“Who prescribed it?” Mara asked.
“Dr. Feld.”
Mara studied the label.
“No, he didn’t.”
Vivian blinked.
“The prescription number begins with SH.”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
Simon Hale.
Mara slipped the bottle into an evidence bag.
Vivian crossed her arms.
“This is absurd. Lucas has taken that formula for months.”
“How many months?”
“I don’t know. Eight? Ten?”
Emma shook her head.
“Long time.”
Mara turned toward Lorenzo.
“We need a hospital.”
“No.”
“Lorenzo.”
“He has a full medical suite here.”
“He needs toxicology equipment you do not have.”
“I can have anything brought here.”
“Not fast enough.”
Lorenzo looked at Lucas.
His son stirred weakly.
“Dad?”
Lorenzo crossed the room immediately.
Lucas opened his eyes.
“Why’s everybody awake?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
“My chest hurts again.”
Lorenzo’s jaw clenched.
Mara moved toward the bed.
“Lucas, where?”
The boy touched the center of his chest.
“And my stomach.”
“Do you feel dizzy?”
“A little.”
“Did you drink anything tonight?”
Lucas nodded toward the bedside table.
Vivian spoke quickly.
“Only water.”
Emma pointed.
“No.”
Grace whispered, “Emma…”
But the little girl was already staring at the nightstand.
Behind a silver water pitcher was an empty glass.
A faint purple streak marked the bottom.
Nobody moved.
Mara picked it up.
Vivian went pale.
“I didn’t give him that.”
Lorenzo turned slowly.
“You just told me the formula was harmless.”
“It is.”
“Then why are you afraid he drank it?”
Vivian’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Mara smelled the glass without touching it to her face.
“We leave now.”
Twenty-two minutes later, Lucas was transported through a private hospital entrance under armed security.
The first laboratory results arrived shortly before three in the morning.
Mara found Lorenzo standing alone behind a glass wall outside the pediatric intensive care unit.
Grace sat farther down the corridor with Emma asleep against her chest.
Mara held several printed pages.
“I need you to listen before you react.”
Lorenzo faced her.
“They found something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A compound in Lucas’s blood that should not be there.”
His face emptied.
Mara continued carefully.
“It can interfere with electrical signals in the heart, cause gastrointestinal symptoms, neurological weakness, confusion, fatigue. Chronic exposure can imitate several different diseases.”
“How long?”
“I can’t tell yet.”
“Can it be reversed?”
“If we stop the exposure and treat the damage, possibly.”
Possibly.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
Three years.
Three years of watching his child disappear while someone stood close enough to pour death into a glass.
“What was in the packet?”
“We don’t have final identification yet. Preliminary analysis suggests the same chemical family.”
Lorenzo looked through the glass at Lucas.
“Vivian.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe.”
“Lorenzo, listen to me.”
He turned.
“The concentration in tonight’s glass is much higher than what we found in the sealed bottle from the refrigerator.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the bottle may not be the only source.”
Mara handed him a photograph.
It showed the waxed packet Emma had found.
On one folded edge was a nearly invisible blue mark.
Three letters had been printed beneath it.
H-A-L.
Hale.
Simon Hale.
Lorenzo pulled out his phone.
Daniel answered immediately.
“Find Simon.”
“We’re already trying.”
“Trying?”
“He isn’t at his apartment.”
Lorenzo went cold.
“Where’s Vivian?”
Silence.
“Daniel.”
“We put her in the east sitting room. Two guards outside.”
“And?”
“She’s gone.”
Lorenzo stared at the phone.
“That’s impossible.”
“The window was open. Camera feed on that hallway went down for seven minutes.”
Mara stepped closer.
“Lorenzo?”
He lowered the phone.
Before he could answer, Grace stood abruptly.
“Mr. Duca.”
Something in her voice made everyone turn.
Emma had awakened.
She was reaching into the pocket of her little nightgown again.
“I forgot.”
Emma pulled out something else she had found inside Lucas’s pillow.
Not powder.
A tiny brass key.
Attached to it was a white paper tag.
Written across the tag in black ink were four words.
FOR ALESSIA’S SAFE ONLY.
Lorenzo stopped breathing.
Alessia had been his wife.
May you like
Lucas’s mother.
And Alessia Duca had been dead for three years.
