Chapter 2 - The Wrong Medicine
At Westbridge Memorial Hospital, the emergency physician asked me a question I was not prepared to answer.
“How long has your mother been taking sedatives?”
“She hasn’t.”
Dr. Ellen Grant studied the laboratory report in her hands.
“These results indicate otherwise.”
My mother lay unconscious behind the glass partition of the treatment room. A breathing mask covered her face. Monitors recorded the fragile rhythm of her heart.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“A high concentration of clonazepam, along with another compound we’re still identifying. For a woman of her age and condition, the combination could suppress respiration.”
“Could it kill her?”
The doctor hesitated.
“Yes.”
The word hollowed out the space inside my chest.
I told her about the replaced labels and the pills scattered across the bed. She immediately asked a nurse to contact hospital security and the police.
“Do not allow anyone to give your mother food, drink, or medication unless it comes directly from hospital staff,” she said.
“Not even my wife?”
“Especially not anyone connected to the incident you described.”
Vanessa arrived twenty minutes later.
She came rushing into the emergency department wearing a cream coat and carrying my mother’s blue medical folder.
“I found it in the study,” she said breathlessly. “You must have missed it.”
I looked at the folder.
It had not been in the study.
I had searched every shelf.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Getting this.”
“You disappeared from the house.”
“I went downstairs.”
“The recorder is missing.”
“What recorder?”
“The one in my mother’s drawer.”
Vanessa looked confused, but her performance was no longer convincing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Before I could answer, two police officers approached.
The older officer introduced herself as Detective Laura Bennett.
She was in her late forties, with calm eyes and a voice that carried authority without needing volume.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hale?”
“Yes,” Vanessa said quickly. “There has been a terrible misunderstanding.”
Detective Bennett looked at her. “I’d like to hear your account separately.”
Vanessa’s hand found mine.
I stepped away from her.
The detective noticed.
For the next hour, we were interviewed in different rooms.
I described everything exactly as I had seen it. The pitcher. The water. The medicine. My mother’s words. The missing recorder. The person who might have escaped through the side gate.
Detective Bennett listened without interruption.
When I finished, she asked, “What did your mother mean when she said your wife knew what your father had done?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is your father alive?”
“No. He died eighteen years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
“Was anyone else killed?”
I felt a cold pressure in my chest.
“My father’s business partner. A man named Thomas Reed.”
The detective wrote down the name.
“Did your mother ever question the circumstances of the accident?”
“Not to me.”
“Did your wife know Thomas Reed?”
“She would have been a teenager when he died.”
“How old is Mrs. Hale?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“And you?”
“Forty-six.”
The detective nodded slowly.
“Your wife’s maiden name?”
“Vanessa Cole.”
Her pen stopped.
“Cole?”
“Yes.”
Something changed in her expression.
“You recognize it?”
“I recognize many names. That doesn’t mean anything yet.”
But it did mean something.
I could see it.
The door opened.
A nurse entered.
“Mr. Hale, your mother is awake.”
I hurried into the treatment room.
My mother looked smaller than she had that morning. Her hair was still damp. A purple bruise had formed near her wrist.
I sat beside her.
“Mom, can you hear me?”
Her eyes opened.
“Daniel.”
“I’m here.”
She looked toward the door, terrified.
“Is she outside?”
“Vanessa?”
My mother nodded.
“The police are here.”
“That won’t stop them.”
“Them?”
She tried to lift herself, but pain forced her back.
“Your father didn’t die in an accident.”
I felt as though the floor had shifted.
“What are you saying?”
“He was running away.”
“From what?”
“From what he had done.”
Her fingers dug into my palm.
“Vanessa didn’t marry you by chance.”
Before I could ask another question, the monitor beside her began to scream.
Her body stiffened.
Doctors rushed into the room and pushed me aside.
As the door closed between us, I saw my mother’s lips forming one last word.
May you like
A name.
Elena.
