Chapter 6 - The Medicine Bottle
We went straight home and emptied every cabinet.
Food.
Supplements.
Cleaning products.
Water filters.
Medication.
Dominic had a toxicologist meet us there, which would have sounded insane forty-eight hours earlier.
Now it felt normal.
The first result came from Mom's iron supplement.
It contained trace amounts of cadmium.
Enough to matter over years.
Mom sat at the kitchen table staring at the bottle.
"Dr. Keene prescribed that brand."
I wanted to throw it through the wall.
Instead I put it in an evidence bag because June reminded me that anger was useful only if you gave it a job.
That was one of Dad's sayings too.
The thought nearly broke me.
Dominic leaned against the counter.
"Keene worked at Halcyon Occupational Health before Whitmore recruited him."
"So Vanessa's family has been poisoning my mother to keep her quiet?"
"Maybe."
"You really love that word."
"Because guessing wrong gets people killed."
I looked at him.
"You speaking from experience?"
His eyes changed.
"Yes."
He finally told me what happened the night of the Halcyon fire.
Dad had called Dominic and said he had proof of illegal dumping and medical fraud. Dominic went to the plant against Carlo's orders.
Someone locked them inside the records wing and started a fire.
Dad got Dominic out through a loading dock.
Then Dad went back.
"Why?"
"He said there was one more copy."
"The Black Ledger."
Dominic nodded.
"I never saw him again."
"But the photo shows you together three days later."
He stared at me.
"What?"
I showed him.
Dominic looked genuinely shaken.
"That isn't me."
I almost laughed.
"It's your face."
"Look at my hand."
In the photograph, the younger Dominic wore a watch on his right wrist.
Dominic lifted his left wrist.
"I've worn a watch on this hand since I was twelve."
June took the photograph.
"Could be reversed."
"The lettering on the building isn't."
The man beside Dad looked exactly like Dominic.
But according to Dominic, it was not him.
That should have been the biggest problem.
Then Mateo came through the front door.
"We found Keene."
"Where?" Dominic asked.
"Parking garage at Whitmore Memorial."
"Alive?"
Mateo hesitated.
"Barely."
We reached the hospital before police locked down the floor.
Keene had been beaten badly.
He saw Mom and began crying.
"Linda."
She stood at the foot of his bed.
"Did you poison me?"
His face collapsed.
"I kept the dose low."
I moved before anyone could stop me.
Dominic caught me around the waist.
"Avery."
"He poisoned her!"
Keene sobbed.
"I was trying to keep her alive."
The sentence was so insane I stopped fighting.
Mom whispered, "Explain."
Keene looked toward the door.
"The blood marker was how they knew you were still receiving the medication. If it disappeared, they would assume you had talked."
"Who is they?"
His lips trembled.
"Ask Vanessa why she really kept ordering food from Avery."
A monitor alarm sounded.
Keene grabbed my wrist.
"She wasn't trying to humiliate you."
His eyes rolled toward the ceiling.
"She was trying to see if you remembered her."
---
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