Chapter 3 - SOMEBODY WANTED HIM WEAK
Jonah stared at the tablets in Stella's palm.
“What are they?”
“I don't know yet.”
“That inspires confidence.”
“I'm a nurse, not a walking pharmaceutical encyclopedia.”
She photographed both pills and called Dr. Aris.
He arrived forty minutes later looking irritated about being dragged through a storm.
His irritation disappeared when Stella showed him the bottle.
He examined the markings.
Then his face hardened.
“This one isn't baclofen.”
Jonah's jaw tightened.
“What is it?”
“A sedative.”
Stella felt cold.
Dr. Aris turned the tablet beneath the lamp.
“A substantial dose.”
“How substantial?”
“Enough that if it was taken along with Jonah's prescribed medications, it could increase drowsiness, reduce coordination and worsen apparent weakness.”
Jonah looked at Stella.
His hands had been worse in the mornings.
His speech slower on certain nights.
Several times she had assumed exhaustion was responsible.
Now she wasn't sure.
“How long?” she asked.
Dr. Aris checked the bottle.
“Impossible to know.”
Stella emptied the remaining tablets onto a clean towel.
Four did not match.
Jonah watched them.
“Someone wants me sedated.”
“Or worse,” Frankie said from the doorway.
Nobody had heard him enter.
Jonah's gaze sharpened.
“Who handles my medication?”
Frankie answered immediately.
“The pharmacy delivers sealed packages. Dr. Aris reviews them. House staff put them in the locked cabinet.”
“Who has access?”
“Me. You. Medical staff.”
“And Mateo?”
Frankie hesitated.
Jonah noticed.
“What?”
“He asked for the cabinet code two weeks ago.”
The room changed.
Jonah's voice became quiet.
“Why?”
“He said you wanted him to bring medication upstairs.”
“I never asked that.”
Frankie swore.
Stella watched Jonah.
For the first time since she'd met him, anger did not make him look powerful.
It made him look wounded.
“Call Mateo.”
Frankie took out his phone.
“No answer.”
“Find him.”
Frankie disappeared.
Dr. Aris took the contaminated bottle for testing after replacing Jonah's medication from his emergency supply.
Stella stayed.
Not because she had forgotten being angry.
Because somebody might be poisoning her patient.
Those were separate issues.
Jonah lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
“Say it.”
Stella looked up.
“Say what?”
“You told me the house was killing me.”
“I said the house was depressing.”
“Close enough.”
“You're not getting sentimental credit because somebody swapped your pills.”
His mouth moved.
“You stayed.”
“I am employed.”
“You were leaving.”
“I was returning tomorrow.”
“You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, she did.
She sat beside the bed.
“Tell me about Mateo.”
Jonah closed his eyes.
“My mother died when I was eleven. My father wasn't exactly skilled at grief.”
“That sounds hereditary.”
He ignored that.
“My aunt moved in for a year. Mateo came with her. We grew up together after that.”
“Same age?”
“He's two years younger.”
“You trust him?”
“With my life.”
Stella looked at the wheelchair.
The answer suddenly sounded different.
Jonah realized it too.
“My father trusted him.”
“Your father trusted Victor once too, apparently.”
Jonah opened his eyes.
“How do you know that?”
“I don't. I guessed.”
He stared.
Stella shrugged.
“Victor walked into this house like he'd been here before.”
Silence.
“And he knew Frankie,” she continued. “Not just professionally. He knew exactly how far he could push him.”
Jonah looked almost annoyed.
“You notice too much.”
“Occupational hazard.”
He finally answered.
“Victor worked for my father.”
“For how long?”
“Twenty years.”
There it was.
“He wasn't always your enemy.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Jonah stared toward the darkened window.
“My father died.”
“That caused it?”
“It revealed it.”
After Arturo Navarro's death, Victor had challenged Jonah's control of the harbor operations.
Not openly.
At first.
He had pulled men away.
Redirected business.
Then one shipment disappeared, along with two drivers.
Jonah discovered Victor had been building his own organization inside Arturo's.
“I removed him.”
“Violently?”
Jonah looked at her.
“You don't want that answer.”
She believed him.
“Mateo sided with you.”
“Immediately.”
“So did Frankie?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would Mateo drug you?”
Jonah's face went blank.
“I don't know that he did.”
That mattered.
He was suspicious.
He wasn't ready to condemn him.
Stella respected that more than she expected.
At midnight, Frankie returned.
Alone.
“Mateo isn't at his apartment.”
“Where is he?”
“His car is at the docks.”
Jonah pushed himself higher against the pillows.
“Then he's at the docks.”
“No.”
Frankie's voice was different.
“We checked.”
Jonah went still.
Frankie placed something on the bedside table.
A silver watch.
Old.
Scratched.
The crystal cracked at one corner.
Jonah stared at it.
Stella did too.
“Mateo's?”
Jonah didn't answer.
Frankie did.
“Arturo's.”
Jonah's father.
Jonah reached for the watch.
His hand shook before he touched it.
“Mateo shouldn't have this.”
“Why?”
Stella asked.
Jonah picked it up carefully.
“Because I gave it to my father the night before he died.”
Frankie looked at him.
“No, boss.”
Jonah frowned.
“What?”
“Mr. Arturo gave that watch to Mateo.”
The silence became heavy.
Jonah stared at Frankie.
“When?”
“The morning he died.”
Jonah's face changed.
“How do you know?”
“I drove him.”
“Where?”
Frankie hesitated.
That was answer enough.
Jonah's voice hardened.
“Frankie.”
“To meet Victor.”
Stella felt the pieces shift again.
The enemy Jonah believed betrayed his father had secretly met with Arturo hours before Arturo died.
And Mateo had somehow ended up with Arturo's watch.
Jonah looked almost physically struck.
“My father never met Victor that morning.”
“Yes, he did.”
“You told me he went to the attorney.”
“He told me to tell you that.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Jonah's hand closed around the watch.
His voice dropped.
“You've lied to me for eight years.”
Frankie looked miserable.
“I kept one promise to your father.”
“And what did it cost me?”
Before Frankie could answer, Stella noticed something caught behind the cracked watch crystal.
A narrow strip of folded paper.
“Wait.”
Jonah looked down.
Stella carefully worked the damaged back loose.
Inside the watch casing was a tiny photograph.
Old.
Faded.
Four young men stood on a dock.
Arturo.
Victor.
Frankie.
And a teenage boy Stella recognized from a framed employee photograph downstairs.
Mateo.
On the back, Arturo had written one sentence.
If anything happens to me, protect Mateo from my son.
Jonah read it twice.
May you like
Then his face went completely still.
His own father had believed Mateo needed protection from him.
