Chapter 5 - The Bottle in Anna's Room
Anna was not arrested.
That almost made it worse.
She spent three hours answering questions while Leo cried every time someone tried to move him away from Richard.
The sedative bottle was found exactly where the photograph showed it.
Anna's fingerprints were not on it.
Vanessa's weren't either.
Neither were Margaret's.
Only one clean partial print appeared on the cap.
Tom's.
Richard stared at his head of security across the office.
Tom looked like he'd been punched.
"I never touched that bottle."
"Your print says you did."
"Then somebody put it there."
"Whose somebody?"
Tom rubbed both hands over his face.
"Richard, I've worked for your family twelve years. I carried Leo into the ambulance the night he couldn't breathe. I was at Julia's funeral."
"And Julia said someone was using my cameras."
Tom flinched.
"You think that was me?"
"I don't know what to think anymore."
Anna sat near the window, exhausted.
"Check the bottle lot number."
Both men looked at her.
"What?" Richard asked.
"Medication has a lot number. Find out where it came from."
Tom immediately called a contact at the pharmacy chain.
Twenty minutes later, they had an answer.
The bottle had never been filled at a retail pharmacy.
It came from a physician sample batch delivered to a private wellness clinic in Santa Monica.
The clinic's former director was Dr. Elaine Porter.
Richard knew the name.
"She treated Julia after Leo was born."
Anna looked at him.
"For what?"
"Anxiety. Sleep problems."
"Did she prescribe the sedative?"
"Julia said she wouldn't take anything that made her groggy around the baby."
Tom searched the clinic's corporate filings.
A second name appeared on an old management document.
Vanessa Keane.
Richard leaned closer.
"Keane?"
Anna felt the answer before anyone said it.
Vanessa's legal surname was Stone.
But Keane was her mother's maiden name.
"She worked there," Anna said.
Tom pulled up a staff archive from three years earlier.
A photograph loaded.
Vanessa stood beside Dr. Porter at a charity event.
The date was nine months before Julia died.
Richard stared at the screen.
"Vanessa told me she had never met Julia."
"She lied," Anna said.
The door opened.
Margaret walked in without knocking.
Richard turned the screen toward her.
"You recognize this?"
His mother looked at Vanessa's photograph.
Her expression gave nothing away.
"No."
Tom's phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked sharply at Richard.
"The lab just called."
"What lab?"
"Leo's blood work from last night. The pediatrician ordered a tox screen because of the fall."
Anna stood.
Tom swallowed.
"There are traces of the same sedative in Leo's system."
Richard's hand tightened around the edge of the desk.
"How much?"
"Not enough to put him to sleep. Enough to make him dizzy."
Anna closed her eyes.
Leo had not simply lost his balance.
Someone had drugged him before Vanessa ever grabbed his wrist.
Richard looked at Margaret.
"Who had access to him yesterday morning?"
Margaret answered too quickly.
"Everyone."
Anna shook her head.
"No."
She remembered breakfast.
Leo refusing his milk.
Vanessa taking the cup.
Margaret saying, Give it here, he'll drink for Grandma.
Anna looked at her.
"You did."
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