Chapter 3 - THE POISON INSIDE HER MEDICINE
Holly had been poisoned slowly.
The Boston medical team found traces of a laboratory compound inside her bloodstream. It did not cause cancer directly, but it prevented her immune system from responding to treatment.
The compound had been administered over several months.
I immediately thought of every pill, injection, and liquid medication Holly had received.
Most came through Briarwood Medical Center.
Some had been delivered to our home.
Derek often collected them.
The realization made me physically ill.
“Could he have known?” I asked the specialist.
“We cannot determine that medically.”
But I knew Derek.
He avoided Holly’s care whenever possible.
He complained about hospital smells, treatment schedules, and the attention her illness required.
Yet during the previous six months, he volunteered to pick up her specialty medication.
I had thought guilt was finally making him act like a father.
Perhaps he had been carrying the poison home.
Calvin arrived in Boston before sunrise with Agent Nora Vega from the federal health-care fraud division.
Nora was direct, quiet, and uninterested in reassuring anyone.
“Northbridge Therapeutics has been under confidential investigation for eighteen months,” she said. “Your mother’s old patent dispute recently reopened after a former laboratory technician contacted us.”
“Who called me during the flight?”
“We believe it was that technician, Samuel Park.”
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
Samuel worked on the original Northbridge trial twenty years earlier.
The official report claimed all twelve child participants died or failed to improve.
According to Samuel, eight survived.
Grant concealed them because the trial used stolen genetic samples and unauthorized doses.
“What happened to the survivors?” I asked.
Nora hesitated.
“Northbridge monitored them secretly.”
“Why?”
“Their blood developed a rare response. The company believed their children might inherit it.”
My eyes moved toward Holly’s treatment room.
“My daughter?”
“Your mother may have received an early version of the therapy after accidental exposure in the laboratory.”
Calvin explained that Eleanor became ill during the patent dispute. She recovered unusually quickly.
If the treatment altered her immune cells, Vanessa and I might have inherited a modified response.
Holly could carry it too.
Grant wanted access to our family not simply for money.
He wanted our bloodline.
Derek married me to keep the patent claim and genetics within reach.
Vanessa’s pregnancy gave them another child to study.
“Does Vanessa know?” I asked.
Nora opened a file.
“Her prenatal clinic is owned by Northbridge.”
I called Vanessa immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Still nothing.
I contacted the hospital in Raleigh.
She had left with Derek shortly after my departure.
Security footage showed Grant Holloway collecting them.
Calvin froze Derek’s vehicles and credit cards, but a private aircraft registered to Northbridge had departed Raleigh before the order took effect.
Destination unknown.
Nora believed Grant took Vanessa to a research facility.
“She may be cooperating,” Nora said.
“Or she may be in danger.”
Both could be true.
Holly began the Boston protocol that afternoon.
The doctors filtered the compound from her blood and administered a treatment derived from publicly available research connected to my mother’s work.
For six hours, her temperature climbed dangerously.
I sat beside her, holding Captain Bun against her arm.
At midnight, her fever broke.
Her eyes opened.
“Mom?”
I started crying.
“I’m here.”
“Did Dad come?”
The question hurt.
“No, sweetheart.”
She stared at the doorway.
“Aunt Vanessa?”
“No.”
Holly looked tired, but fear entered her expression.
“She gave me the purple medicine.”
My heart stopped.
“What purple medicine?”
“The sweet one. She said Dad forgot.”
I had never seen a purple medicine.
“When?”
“When you worked nights.”
Vanessa had babysat during my weekend shifts.
She told me Holly slept most of the time.
“Did it make you sick?”
“It made my arms heavy.”
I kissed her forehead and stepped into the hallway.
Nora recorded Holly’s statement through a pediatric specialist.
Then she showed me a photograph recovered from Derek’s cloud account.
Vanessa stood beside a cooler containing vials labeled with Holly’s patient number.
“She participated,” Nora said.
I stared at my sister’s smiling face.
“Why?”
“Northbridge paid her.”
“How much?”
“More than six hundred thousand dollars.”
The consulting account Calvin identified was not merely affair money.
It was payment for delivering the compound.
Vanessa knew she was harming Holly.
Perhaps she did not understand the full effect.
But she knew enough to hide it.
I called her again.
This time, she answered.
Her voice shook.
“Marissa, I need help.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Some medical facility.”
“Is Derek with you?”
“Yes.”
“Grant?”
“Yes.”
A door slammed near her.
“Listen,” she whispered. “They said they only wanted to make Holly look too sick for the Boston program. They promised the compound would not kill her.”
“You gave poison to my child.”
“I needed the money.”
“You had a job.”
“I had debts.”
“You laughed beside her hospital bed.”
Vanessa began sobbing.
“I was scared.”
“You were greedy.”
“I’m your sister.”
“You stopped being my sister every time you gave her that bottle.”
Someone grabbed the phone.
Grant Holloway’s voice replaced hers.
“Marissa.”
I had met him only twice.
He sounded exactly as I remembered—controlled and superior.
“You are interfering with medical research you do not understand.”
“You poisoned my daughter.”
“We delayed a dangerous experimental procedure.”
“You paid Vanessa.”
“We compensated her cooperation.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Where is Derek?”
“Learning the cost of incompetence.”
A man cried out in the background.
Derek.
Grant continued.
“The Boston team will ask you for access to Holly’s cells. Refuse.”
“Why?”
“Because the treatment belongs to Northbridge.”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“Your mother was an employee.”
“She co-founded the company.”
“She lacked discipline.”
“Did you kill her?”
Silence.
Then Grant said, “Your mother chose the mountain road.”
The same language abusers use about victims.
She chose.
He never answered directly because he believed power made direct confession unnecessary.
Nora traced the call to an abandoned Northbridge manufacturing plant outside Richmond, Virginia.
Federal teams prepared a raid.
Before they arrived, the building’s fire alarms activated.
Security cameras showed smoke pouring from the laboratory wing.
Grant had used the same strategy twice.
Burn the evidence.
Blame the dead.
But this time, Vanessa sent me one final message.
A photograph of a locked freezer room.
Inside were dozens of small blood-storage containers.
One bore my name.
Another bore Vanessa’s.
A third was labeled HOLLY HOLLOWAY — BIRTH SAMPLE.
The final container read:
May you like
MALE FETUS — SUBJECT G13.
Grant was already experimenting on Vanessa’s unborn son.
