Chapter 2 - The Poison Started at Breakfast
Michael called 911 before Daniel could speak again.
Daniel sank into a chair.
His heart raced so hard it felt like it was trying to escape his chest.
Nora moved toward the hallway.
"Don't let her leave," Michael shouted through the phone.
Daniel couldn't stop her.
Lily did.
Not physically.
She simply ran in front of the doorway and screamed.
"Nora bad!"
Nora stopped.
Sirens became audible outside.
Her face twisted.
"Move."
Lily backed away but kept pointing.
Daniel forced out one word.
"Stay."
Nora looked at him.
"You really think they'll believe a toddler?"
Then the front door opened.
Paramedics rushed inside.
Police followed.
Nora tried to explain immediately.
"He suddenly became ill. He has heart problems."
Daniel looked at her through blurred vision.
"I don't."
A paramedic checked his pulse.
"Sir, did you take anything today?"
Daniel tried to think.
Coffee.
Toast.
Vitamin.
His prescription allergy pill.
Orange juice.
Then he remembered.
Nora had insisted on bringing breakfast upstairs.
She never did that.
"The juice."
One paramedic looked at Nora.
"Who prepared it?"
Nora answered too quickly.
"He did."
Daniel shook his head.
"Liar."
Police separated them.
Lily clung to Daniel until Rosalie, Daniel's mother, arrived.
At the hospital, doctors treated Daniel immediately.
His blood pressure was dangerously unstable.
His heart rhythm was abnormal.
Toxicology samples were taken.
Michael arrived twenty minutes later.
"What happened?"
Daniel stared at the ceiling.
"I don't know."
But he did know one thing.
Nora had expected him to become ill.
The tea had only confirmed it.
Rosalie sat beside Lily in the corner of the private room.
"She kept saying 'cup bad,'" Rosalie whispered.
Daniel closed his eyes.
"She saw something."
Michael looked at him.
"What?"
"I don't know yet."
A doctor entered.
"We found something unusual."
Daniel sat straighter.
The doctor held a preliminary lab report.
"There appears to be a cardiac medication in your system."
Daniel frowned.
"I don't take heart medication."
"I know."
"How much?"
"Enough to explain what happened."
Michael's expression changed.
"Could it have killed him?"
The doctor paused.
"Potentially."
Silence.
Daniel looked toward Lily.
His daughter was hugging a stuffed rabbit Rosalie had brought from home.
She had saved his life.
Then Detective Aaron Mills entered.
"We found the broken cup."
Daniel looked at him.
"And?"
"The tea contained the same medication."
Michael swore under his breath.
"But Daniel says he didn't drink it."
Mills nodded.
"Which means he was exposed earlier."
Daniel remembered the orange juice.
The detective continued.
"We also found something else in the kitchen trash."
A blister pack.
Empty.
The label had been torn off.
But part of one name remained visible.
Nora Blake.
Daniel stared.
The medication was prescribed to her.
Or at least issued under her name.
Then Mills said the part that frightened Daniel most.
"This prescription was filled three days ago."
Michael looked at Daniel.
"So this was planned."
Daniel's voice went quiet.
"Yes."
But why?
Nora had lived with Daniel and Lily for eleven months.
She wasn't his wife.
She wasn't family.
She was the woman he had hired to help manage the house after Lily's mother died.
Somewhere along the way, she'd become indispensable.
May you like
Too indispensable.
And now Daniel realized he had never once asked why Nora seemed so eager to stay.
