Chapter 6 - The Last Dose
“No.”
Vincent’s answer came before Marcus finished speaking.
“He asked for Megan specifically.”
“I heard you.”
I closed my notebook.
“Let him in.”
Vincent turned.
“Absolutely not.”
“He came here voluntarily.”
“So do delivery drivers. I don’t let them interrogate my nurse.”
“He wants to talk.”
“He wants something.”
“Probably.”
Vincent stared at me.
“You’re not going near him alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
That compromise got Daniel inside.
Marcus searched him twice.
No weapons.
No phone.
No recording devices.
We met in a security room separated by reinforced glass.
Vincent stood behind me.
Daniel noticed.
“You really don’t let her out of your sight anymore.”
Vincent’s voice was ice.
“Talk.”
Daniel ignored him and looked at me.
“You document everything?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He slid an envelope across the table.
“Document this.”
Inside were photographs.
Bank statements.
Copies of messages.
And one name I recognized immediately.
Dr. Howard Bell.
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
Vincent stepped closer.
Daniel nodded.
“Howard is the Partner.”
I looked through the records.
Payments from shell companies.
Property transfers.
Encrypted messages.
One photograph showed Howard meeting a private courier outside a parking garage.
Another showed him entering Daniel’s office after midnight.
Vincent shook his head.
“Howard has treated me since I was seventeen.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“And you’ve known me twenty years. Apparently longevity isn’t the character reference we thought it was.”
“Why would Howard do it?”
Daniel looked at Vincent.
“Debt.”
Howard had invested heavily in a medical technology company that collapsed.
He owed millions.
Worse, Daniel claimed Howard had been quietly borrowing against property he didn’t own.
Vincent’s property.
“He needed you incapacitated long enough for the succession documents to activate,” Daniel said. “Then he planned to use me.”
Marcus frowned.
“Why you?”
“Because everyone would suspect me.”
Daniel’s smile was empty.
“And because I was greedy enough to make it believable.”
He admitted the forged deed.
He admitted paying Eric.
He admitted creating illegal contingency documents.
But he denied knowing about the poison when the plan began.
“Howard told me Vincent wanted an aggressive restructuring because of health problems.”
“You believed that?” I asked.
“At first.”
“And later?”
Daniel looked down.
“Later I stopped asking questions because the money was good.”
Vincent’s disappointment was almost worse than anger.
“So you betrayed me.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t poison me.”
“No.”
“The medication?”
“I authorized the courier. Howard handled what was inside.”
“The blood samples?”
Daniel nodded.
“Howard told me to remove them.”
“You knew then.”
Daniel’s eyes filled with shame.
“I knew something criminal was happening.”
Vincent stepped closer to the glass.
“And you kept going.”
“Yes.”
Twenty years ended in that one word.
No shouting.
No gun.
No dramatic threat.
Just yes.
Vincent turned away.
Daniel pressed his palms against the table.
“I came because Howard is going to kill Megan.”
Vincent turned back instantly.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why should I believe you?”
“Because she ruined the plan.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Howard expected another nurse to quit. Nobody lasted more than a few days because Vincent made their lives miserable.”
Vincent glanced at me.
I shrugged.
“He’s not wrong.”
Daniel continued.
“Howard encouraged that. Every nurse who left meant fewer questions. Then Megan arrived and touched him before Howard could control the examination.”
I remembered Howard’s face that first morning.
Not arrogance.
Panic.
“He knew I’d recognize the symptoms.”
“Not immediately. But once you ordered toxicology, he knew.”
“The sniper?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Wasn’t supposed to kill you.”
“A warning,” I said.
“Yes.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“And the thermos?”
“Howard.”
“How did he get into my room?”
Daniel looked toward Marcus.
Marcus stiffened.
“He didn’t.”
Silence.
Daniel continued.
“He paid someone on the inside.”
Marcus’s face went pale.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
That meant the house was still compromised.
Vincent ordered a full security rotation.
Every employee was confined to designated areas.
Marcus personally reviewed access records.
At 2:06 a.m., we found the household aide I had noticed staring at the breakfast tray on my first morning.
His name was Tyler Reed.
Twenty-four.
Kitchen assistant.
He broke after eleven minutes of questioning.
Howard had paid him.
Not to poison Vincent directly.
To carry sealed containers.
Switch medication packages.
Place the thermos.
Erase selected camera files using a stolen administrator code.
“I didn’t know what was in anything,” Tyler cried.
Marcus looked disgusted.
“You didn’t ask?”
“He said it was medicine Mr. Vale refused to take.”
Vincent stood across the room.
“How much?”
“Five thousand a week.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“You sold my life for five thousand dollars a week.”
Tyler lowered his head.
Marcus removed him.
I expected Vincent to celebrate.
Instead, he sat alone in the library.
I found him there near dawn.
“Daniel. Howard. Tyler.”
He stared into the fireplace.
“Everyone has a price.”
“Not everyone.”
He looked at me.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Everybody does.”
“You offered me triple salary yesterday to leave town.”
“And?”
“I’m still here.”
“That proves you have poor financial instincts.”
I smiled.
He didn’t.
So I sat beside him.
“My mother died when I was twenty-seven,” I said.
He turned.
“Cancer?”
“Stroke.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was working when it happened. I kept thinking if I’d been there, maybe I would’ve noticed something sooner.”
“You were a nurse. Not God.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
I looked at him.
Maybe he knew me better than I realized.
“I spent years trying to save everyone because I couldn’t save her.”
“And now?”
“Now I try to help people without pretending I control the ending.”
Vincent was quiet.
Then he reached for my hand.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“What?”
“This.”
His thumb moved lightly across my knuckles.
“Trust someone without expecting a knife.”
“You start small.”
“How small?”
I leaned against his shoulder.
“This small.”
He went still.
Then relaxed.
We stayed that way until sunrise.
No guards.
No rules.
No Vincent Vale the legend.
Just Vincent.
The next afternoon, Howard called.
He claimed Daniel had framed him.
He offered to surrender evidence proving it.
Marcus traced the call.
Howard was inside an abandoned clinic owned by one of his former companies.
Vincent wanted to go.
I said no.
He went anyway.
So naturally, I went too.
Marcus looked like he regretted meeting both of us.
Police contacts were notified quietly.
Marcus’s team surrounded the clinic.
We entered through a side corridor.
Howard stood in an old examination room.
He looked exhausted.
“I never wanted this,” he said.
Vincent stared at him.
“You poisoned me for six months.”
“I needed time.”
“For what?”
“To fix what I’d lost.”
“With my money.”
“You have more than you could spend in ten lifetimes!”
“And that made stealing it acceptable?”
Howard’s face twisted.
“You don’t understand what it’s like to lose everything.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“You were willing to make sure I did.”
Howard looked at me.
“You.”
I didn’t move.
“Twelve nurses understood when to leave.”
“They didn’t know you were poisoning him.”
“You should’ve left.”
“You should’ve been a better doctor.”
His face changed.
Then his hand moved into his coat.
Marcus shouted.
Vincent pulled me behind him.
But Howard didn’t draw a weapon.
He held a small remote.
A red light blinked.
Marcus froze.
“What did you do?”
Howard smiled.
“You people always look at guns.”
Then I smelled it.
Gas.
Marcus shouted for everyone to evacuate.
We ran.
An explosion ripped through the rear of the clinic seconds after we reached the parking lot.
Windows blew outward.
Flames climbed into the November sky.
Howard didn’t come out.
For several terrible minutes, we believed he had died inside.
Then Marcus received a call.
The tunnel beneath the clinic had been opened.
Howard had escaped.
May you like
And he had taken something with him.
Vincent’s original stolen blood samples.
