Chapter 1 - THE PILL THAT WASN'T HIS
Sadi handed Desmond the tablet with half a glass of water.
“One pill,” she said.
He glared at her.
“You’ve repeated that three times.”
“Because you look like the kind of man who negotiates with medication.”
“I negotiate with everyone.”
“Your spinal cord doesn’t care.”
Desmond muttered something unpleasant, swallowed the tablet, then handed back the glass.
Sadi turned toward the medication cabinet.
She was tired enough that at first she almost missed it.
Almost.
The baclofen tablets she had given him for the previous two weeks were small, round, and scored through the center.
The tablet Desmond had just swallowed was oval.
Sadi froze.
She picked up the bottle.
Correct label.
Correct dosage.
Correct pharmacy.
But when she poured three tablets into her palm, all of them were oval.
Her exhaustion vanished.
“Desmond.”
His eyes were already closing.
“What?”
“Who filled this bottle?”
“The pharmacy.”
“No.”
He looked toward her.
Sadi pulled open the top drawer where she kept photographs of medication labels for her own documentation.
She showed him an image from five days earlier.
Round tablet.
Same bottle.
Same prescription.
Now oval.
Desmond’s face hardened.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying somebody switched your medication.”
He sat more upright.
The movement took effort.
“Maybe the pharmacy changed manufacturers.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at the imprint.
Then at the prescription reference app on her phone.
Her stomach dropped.
“What?”
Desmond’s voice sharpened.
Sadi did not answer immediately.
She checked again.
Then a third time.
The tablet was not baclofen.
It was clonazepam.
A sedative.
Not a lethal dose.
Not even necessarily dangerous by itself.
But enough to make Desmond drowsy.
Slow his reaction time.
Cloud his thinking.
Exactly what he had complained about for weeks.
He stared at her.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
His face changed.
The tired patient vanished.
The boss returned.
“Frankie.”
Sadi grabbed his wrist before he could reach the call button.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Remove your hand.”
“You call security right now, whoever switched the bottle knows we noticed.”
For several seconds, the room became very quiet.
Then Desmond looked at her fingers around his wrist.
Sadi released him.
“That was brave,” he said.
“That was stupid.”
“I agree.”
She held up the bottle.
“Who has access to this room?”
“Everyone cleared for my medical floor.”
“How many?”
“Eight.”
“Doctors?”
“One.”
“Nurses?”
“You.”
“Family?”
His jaw tightened.
“My brother.”
That was the first time Sadi had heard about a brother.
“Name?”
“Patrick.”
“Anyone else?”
“My executive assistant. Frankie. Head of security. House manager.”
“Which one handles prescriptions?”
“My physician.”
“And deliveries?”
“Usually Frankie.”
Sadi placed the tablets into an evidence bag from her nursing kit.
Desmond watched.
“You carry evidence bags?”
“I used to work night shift in an emergency department. People brought us everything from severed fingers to bags of mystery powder.”
He almost smiled.
Then his face slackened slightly.
The clonazepam was beginning to work.
Sadi cursed under her breath.
“How much did I just take?”
“Probably half a milligram.”
“Probably?”
“The imprint says half.”
“Will it hurt me?”
“No. But you’re staying awake until I’m sure your breathing is fine.”
His eyes became colder.
“Someone has been drugging me.”
“Sedating you.”
“Same thing.”
“No. Words matter.”
“They matter to nurses.”
“They matter in court too.”
That made him look at her differently.
Sadi took his blood pressure.
Then his oxygen saturation.
Both stable.
She replaced the blanket over his legs.
Desmond stopped her hand before she could move away.
Not hard.
Just enough.
“Sadi.”
“What?”
“If someone inside this house has been changing my medication…”
“Yes?”
“They did it after the bomb.”
She waited.
He rarely spoke about the explosion.
Everyone knew only the public story.
Six months earlier, Desmond’s armored sedan had exploded beneath an expressway overpass.
Driver dead.
Desmond survived.
Spinal cord damaged.
No arrests.
He released her wrist.
“The car bomb was supposed to kill me.”
“That seems like a reasonable interpretation of a car bomb.”
His mouth twitched.
Then he said:
“But what if whoever did it stopped trying to kill me?”
Sadi stared.
“What do you mean?”
“What if they realized this was better?”
His eyes moved toward the wheelchair.
“Alive.”
A pause.
“Dependent.”
Another.
“Easy to control.”
Sadi felt a cold line move down her spine.
Then the door opened.
Neither of them had called anyone.
Patrick Gallagher stood in the doorway.
Tall.
Immaculate.
May you like
Smiling.
And in his hand was another bottle of Desmond’s medication.
Related Stories
