Chapter 3 - The Picture With the Red Hand
Marcus did not sleep that night.
At two in the morning, he rolled into the kitchen, placed the silver medication case beneath the pendant lights, and stared at it as though it were a device recovered from an enemy position.
The pills looked ordinary.
That irritated him.
Betrayal, if it existed, should have had the decency to look like betrayal.
Instead, the capsules were pale blue and white, the tablets were scored cleanly down the middle, and the labels matched the pharmacy printout clipped inside the case.
Marcus took out his phone.
He called Dr. Evelyn Hart’s private number.
She answered on the fifth ring with the voice of a woman who had been awakened from deep sleep and was deciding whether murder would be professionally defensible.
“Marcus?”
“Sorry.”
“You’d better be bleeding.”
“I’m not.”
“Then I hate you.”
“I need you to tell me exactly what medication you prescribed last month.”
There was a pause.
Her voice changed.
“Why?”
“I’m checking something.”
“What?”
“Humor me.”
Evelyn had treated him through three surgeries and eighteen months of rehabilitation, which meant she had earned the right to ignore his attempts at command.
“Did you have a reaction?”
“Not exactly.”
“Dizziness?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I’ve blamed the injury.”
“Fatigue?”
“Yes.”
“Confusion?”
“Sometimes after the afternoon dose.”
She was fully awake now.
“Do not take anything else from that case until I see it.”
Marcus stared at the pills.
“That was fast.”
“Because you just described side effects that became significantly worse after your last refill, and I did not increase your sedating medications.”
The loft seemed to tighten around him.
“Who ordered the refill?”
“My office transmitted the prescriptions directly.”
“Who picked them up?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus did.
Adrian’s assistant had brought the pharmacy bag three weeks earlier.
He remembered because Adrian had been in the loft that afternoon arguing about Raven Street.
Marcus closed the case.
“I’ll send a courier in the morning.”
“No.”
Evelyn’s answer was immediate.
“Bring the case yourself, or send someone you trust completely.”
Marcus almost laughed.
Trust had suddenly become the most expensive word he knew.
Marcus remained at the kitchen island after the call, staring at a row of pills that had become impossible to see as neutral objects.
He remembered the first months after the crash when nurses recorded every tablet before placing it in his hand.
He had resented that supervision.
Later, when he returned home, he demanded control over his own medication because swallowing pills from someone else’s palm made him feel like a patient instead of a person.
Adrian had responded by buying the silver organizer.
“Control without chaos,” he had called it.
At the time, Marcus had been grateful.
He had not asked who refilled it on the days he slept through the nurse’s visit.
He had not asked why Adrian sometimes arrived with pharmacy bags even though the pharmacy delivered directly.
He had not asked why the labels on two bottles had changed font six months earlier.
Small discrepancies disappeared easily when pain occupied most of the available space in a person’s mind.
By sunrise, Marcus had arranged the pills by shape and photographed every compartment.
He hated himself for not having done it sooner.
Then he stopped.
Self-accusation was familiar territory, and that familiarity made it dangerous.
The person who had altered the medication, if anyone had, depended on Marcus blaming his own weakness more quickly than he questioned the system around him.
He placed the photographs in an encrypted folder and sent the password to Evelyn through a different channel.
It was the first deliberately secret act Marcus had taken from Adrian in two years.
The act was small.
It felt enormous.
The next afternoon, Clara arrived alone.
Marcus noticed immediately.
“Where’s the prosecutor?”
“School reopened.”
He nodded as if the information meant nothing.
Clara began cleaning the kitchen.
Marcus watched her for several minutes before speaking.
“I need a favor.”
She turned slowly.
The request sounded unnatural coming from him.
“What kind?”
Marcus held out a plain brown paper bag.
“Take this to Northwestern Memorial.”
Clara did not reach for it.
“What is it?”
“Medication.”
“Why can’t your driver take it?”
“Because Adrian hired my driver.”
The words landed between them.
Clara’s face changed.
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“That usually means yes.”
Marcus almost smiled.
“Lily gets that from you.”
“She gets the dangerous part from her father.”
Marcus heard something in her voice and did not ask.
Clara took the bag.
“What do I tell them?”
“Give it directly to Dr. Evelyn Hart.”
“And if someone asks what’s inside?”
“Tell them it’s none of their business.”
Clara raised an eyebrow.
“I definitely understand why you like Lily.”
She tucked the bag inside her canvas tote.
Before leaving, she stopped by the freight elevator.
“Mr. Vale.”
“Marcus.”
She hesitated.
“Marcus, if you think someone is doing something to your medication, you shouldn’t stay here alone.”
“I’ve handled worse.”
“That’s not the same as handling this.”
He looked away.
Clara recognized the movement for what it was.
Pride hiding fear.
She knew that posture because she had lived beside it for eight years before Lily’s father, Ben, died in a construction accident that should never have happened.
“Call me if you need anything,” she said.
Marcus looked back at her.
“I thought you cleaned three mornings a week.”
“I also answer phones.”
The elevator doors closed.
Three hours later, Clara picked Lily up from school.
Lily climbed into the back seat and immediately asked whether Marcus had eaten.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Most of it.”
“That means no.”
Clara pulled away from the curb.
“Your standards are exhausting.”
At a red light, she noticed Lily staring at her backpack.
“What?”
“I made something.”
“For me?”
“For Marcus.”
“Of course.”
Lily pulled out a folded page.
Clara glanced at the drawing while the light remained red.
It showed the loft kitchen.
She recognized the island because Lily had drawn its three pendant lights as giant yellow circles.
A stick figure in a wheelchair sat near the window.
Another figure stood beside the silver medication case.
That figure had one enormous red hand.
Clara frowned.
“Who is that?”
Lily leaned forward between the seats.
“The man who doesn’t knock.”
“Adrian?”
Lily nodded.
“Why is his hand red?”
“Because he had the red bottle.”
Clara’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“What red bottle?”
“The little one.”
“When?”
“The day you were washing the blankets.”
Clara turned onto a side street and pulled over.
She faced her daughter.
“Lily, tell me exactly what you saw.”
Lily’s eyes widened at her mother’s tone.
“I was getting my purple pencil.”
“Where?”
“By Marcus’s desk.”
“And Adrian was there?”
“He put little things in the silver box.”
“What little things?”
“Medicine.”
Clara’s heart began to pound.
“How do you know?”
“Because he took the blue ones out first.”
The street outside suddenly seemed too quiet.
Clara picked up her phone and called Marcus.
He answered on the first ring.
“Everything okay?”
“No.”
Marcus went silent.
Clara looked at Lily’s drawing again.
“Lily saw Adrian changing the pills in your medication case.”
There was no sound from the other end for several seconds.
Then Marcus spoke in a voice so calm it frightened her more than anger would have.
“Where are you?”
“In the car.”
“Do not come here.”
“Marcus—”
“Take Lily home.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing yet.”
Clara knew men who said those words right before doing something irreversible.
“Promise me.”
Marcus stared across the loft at the freight elevator.
The floor indicator had just begun to move upward.
“I have to go.”
“Marcus.”
The elevator reached his floor.
The doors opened.
May you like
Adrian stepped out carrying a new pharmacy bag.
Marcus ended the call.
