Chapter 3 - The Audit at Dawn
The sun rose over Lake Michigan in a smear of cold grey and bruised purple, turning the choppy waters into sheets of hammered lead.
By six o'clock, Hannah was sitting at the stainless steel island in the mansion's massive, commercially equipped kitchen, her laptop glowing in the dim morning light. Spread out around her were three empty medication bottles, a digital scale she had smuggled in her medical kit, and a small plastic evidence bag containing two white pills she had quietly extracted from the back of Nicholas’s private bathroom cabinet the night before.
She didn't trust the house staff. She didn't trust Dr. Thorne, who visited twice a week like clockwork and always seemed entirely too comfortable with Claire’s presence during consultations. And she certainly didn't trust Claire Whitmore, whose charity-board smile masked the cold calculating eyes of someone playing a very long, very dangerous game.
"You're up early."
Hannah didn't jump. She had heard the heavy, measured tread of Walter Bell’s footsteps approaching down the stone-tiled hallway long before he reached the kitchen.
The sixty-eight-year-old family adviser walked in wearing a tailored wool vest over a crisp white shirt, holding a steaming mug of black coffee. He pulled out the barstool opposite Hannah and sat down, his heavy silver-rimmed glasses catching the early morning light.
"I don't sleep much when patients spike fevers that shouldn't exist," Hannah said, not looking up from her screen.
"Nicholas had another episode?" Walter asked, blowing gently across the surface of his coffee.
"He had classic signs of barbiturate or neuroleptic poisoning," Hannah corrected bluntly. "Someone is altering his evening neuro-stabilizer. They're crushing a secondary sedative into his capsules—something that mimics natural fatigue and muscle weakness while slowly suppressing his respiratory system over time. If this continues for another month, his organs will shut down, and Dr. Thorne will sign off on a tragic post-accident complication."
Walter’s coffee mug stopped halfway to his mouth. The grandfatherly warmth vanished from his features, replaced instantly by the hard, dangerous intelligence of a man who had survived four decades at the right hand of Chicago's most feared syndicate boss.
"You realize what you're implying," Walter said softly.
"I'm not implying anything, Mr. Bell. I'm stating a clinical fact," Hannah said, turning her laptop around so he could see the chemical breakdown notes and dosage discrepancy charts she had compiled overnight. "Look at the refill dates. The pharmacy logs show prescription pickups occurring every fourteen days instead of thirty. Someone is doubling his intake behind our backs."
Walter stared at the screen for a long, agonizing minute. His thick fingers tapped a slow, rhythmic tattoo against the ceramic mug.
"Claire manages the household pharmacy orders," Walter murmured, more to himself than to Hannah. "She’s been the one handling his post-accident care coordination with Dr. Thorne since the winter."
"And she’s the primary beneficiary of his estate if anything happens before the wedding," Hannah added quietly.
Walter looked up, his grey eyes locking onto hers with a sudden, razor-sharp intensity. "You're a remarkable young woman, Hannah Reed. Most nurses in your position would look the other way, take the hazard pay, and let the rich man die in his sleep so they could collect their bonus."
"Most nurses don't have an eight-year-old brother waiting for heart surgery in Berwyn," Hannah said, her voice dropping an octave. "And I don't let people die on my watch."
Walter stood up, smoothing down his vest. "Keep digging. But be invisible about it. If Claire or Thorne realizes we're onto them, they won't wait for the poison to work. They'll use a blunt instrument."
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As Walter walked out of the kitchen, Hannah leaned back in her chair, her hands trembling slightly as she closed her laptop. She looked over at the kitchen wall clock. Six-thirty.
In two hours, the engagement party guests would be gone, the caterers would pack up their vans, and Claire Whitmore would discover that her fiancé's private nurse wasn't as easily manipulated as the four who came before her.
