Chapter 3 - THE ALLERGY ONLY FOUR PEOPLE WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW
Grant hated hospitals.
Claire discovered that immediately the next morning.
He sat upright in bed, disconnected one monitor lead himself, and looked at the remaining equipment with personal resentment.
“You are not leaving.”
Claire said.
Grant turned.
“You are no longer currently assigned to my household.”
“That doesn’t make your discharge decision intelligent.”
“Are you always this insubordinate?”
“Only when people survive attempted murder and immediately try to create a second emergency.”
Emma sat by the window eating crackers from home.
She giggled.
Grant looked toward her.
“Your mother is difficult.”
Emma nodded.
“I know.”
Claire stared.
“Both of you.”
The pharmacy driver had delivered Emma’s replacement EpiPens before midnight.
Claire checked them three times.
Expiration dates.
Packaging.
Prescription label.
One went in Emma’s backpack.
One in Claire’s purse.
Grant watched.
“How much?”
Claire knew.
“No.”
“How much did they cost?”
“No.”
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“Do not start.”
“You used her last injector to save my life.”
“Yes.”
“I am replacing it.”
“It is already replaced.”
“By you.”
“Yes.”
Emma answered without looking up.
“Three hundred eighty-six dollars.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Emma.”
“What?”
“You said we don’t lie.”
Grant stared at Claire.
“Nearly four hundred dollars.”
“Yes.”
“For medication she may need without warning.”
“Yes.”
“And the pharmacy delayed it.”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
Claire saw the billionaire mechanism beginning.
Problem.
Resources.
Solution.
“No.”
Grant frowned.
“What?”
“Do not buy a pharmacy.”
“I wasn’t going to buy a pharmacy.”
“A pharmaceutical company?”
“Also no.”
“Ten thousand EpiPens?”
His expression suggested she was getting closer.
Claire sighed.
“You almost died yesterday.”
“Today, survive being a patient.”
Grant leaned back.
“For twelve more hours.”
“Twenty-four.”
“We’ll negotiate.”
Detective Mara Ellison arrived just after nine.
She introduced herself to Claire and Emma before speaking to Grant.
Good.
No treating the household employee as scenery.
She placed a file on the table.
“The broken wineglass contained concentrated walnut protein.”
Grant’s face changed.
“How concentrated?”
“Enough that accidental contamination is extremely unlikely.”
“Bottle?”
“Still missing.”
“Tea?”
“Clean.”
Claire remembered.
“Grant never asked for the tea.”
Detective Ellison looked toward her.
“What?”
“Walter told me he requested chamomile tea with the wine.”
Grant frowned.
“I did not.”
“That was strange.”
Claire continued.
“You never changed your afternoon routine.”
Detective Ellison wrote.
“Who knew about the allergy?”
Grant answered slowly.
“Rebecca knew.”
His dead wife.
“Avery knew.”
His daughter.
“Adrian.”
“Walter.”
“Private physician.”
“Anyone else?”
Grant thought.
“Possibly old family friends.”
“How old?”
“Teenage years.”
“What happened?”
“I ate walnut cake at a school fundraiser.”
“Anaphylaxis?”
“Yes.”
“Who was there?”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“My brother Nathan.”
“Adrian.”
“Thomas Keene.”
Detective Ellison looked up.
“Names.”
Grant gave them.
Claire noticed his face at Nathan’s name.
“What happened to your brother?”
The detective asked.
“He died.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“How?”
“Overdose.”
Grant looked away.
“He had been sober from alcohol for eleven years.”
“Opioid history?”
“No.”
“Did you believe accidental overdose?”
“At the time.”
Something in his voice suggested he no longer knew.
Detective Ellison changed topics.
“Your cousin Adrian.”
“Yes.”
“What does he gain if you die?”
Grant looked irritated.
“Everyone asks rich people that before asking whether we want to be alive.”
“It is my job.”
“I know.”
He exhaled.
“Adrian becomes interim executive chairman.”
“Voting authority?”
“Temporary.”
“Financial benefit?”
“Yes.”
“How substantial?”
“Substantial enough to sound terrible in this conversation.”
Detective Ellison did not smile.
“And Milwaukee?”
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“What about it?”
“Your board meeting yesterday.”
“How did you know?”
“Phone records.”
“Corporate calendar.”
“She’s a detective.”
Claire said.
Grant gave her a look.
Emma giggled again.
The Milwaukee acquisition was larger than Claire understood.
Holloway Infrastructure planned to purchase a regional engineering consortium.
Due diligence would require outside auditors to review years of subcontractor payments.
Adrian had pushed to delay.
Grant had refused.
“Would the transaction diminish his authority?”
“No.”
“Potentially increase it after integration.”
“Then why oppose?”
“He believes the price is too high.”
Grant paused.
“Or says he does.”
Detective Ellison’s phone rang.
She stepped away.
Returned two minutes later.
“We have a preliminary identification on the blood behind the greenhouse.”
Grant sat straighter.
“Walter?”
“Yes.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“Not enough to establish fatal loss.”
“Drag marks?”
“Yes.”
“Vehicle?”
“Tire impressions on a service road.”
“Camera?”
“Deleted during the same twelve-minute window.”
Grant’s hands tightened.
“He was taken.”
“Likely.”
Then:
“We found a dark navy jacket button.”
Grant looked toward Adrian’s name in the notes.
Claire said:
“Half the estate staff own navy.”
“Exactly.”
Detective Ellison replied.
“We do not jump.”
Good.
The story resisted easy villainy.
Then Mason called.
Police had searched Walter’s private suite at the estate.
Inside a locked drawer they found something unrelated to the poisoning.
A sapphire cuff link.
Blue.
Grant became completely still.
“One of Adrian’s?”
“No.”
Mason answered.
“Engraving says N.H.”
Nathan Holloway.
Grant stopped breathing.
The cuff links Grant had commissioned for his wedding.
Identical blue sapphires.
One pair each for:
Adrian.
Walter.
Thomas Keene.
Nathan.
Nathan’s had disappeared after his death.
Now one sat inside Walter’s drawer.
Why?
Then Mason added:
“There’s a letter.”
“What letter?”
“Rebecca’s handwriting.”
Grant’s face changed instantly.
Claire saw grief arrive like a physical blow.
“What does it say?”
Mason swallowed.
“It’s sealed.”
“Addressed to Walter.”
“Front says:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, DO NOT GIVE THIS TO GRANT UNTIL YOU KNOW WHO KILLED NATHAN.”
Grant looked toward the wall.
No one spoke.
The overdose he had spent six years believing was tragic now had a different word attached.
Killed.
Rebecca had suspected murder before her own death.
Detective Ellison said quietly:
“We need to preserve the letter.”
Grant nodded.
Barely.
Claire watched him struggle.
Five years of mourning Rebecca and Avery.
Six years of mourning Nathan.
Maybe all three deaths were connected.
Then Adrian called.
Grant answered on speaker at Detective Ellison’s request.
“Grant.”
Adrian sounded tired.
“Police came to my office.”
“Did they?”
“They asked about your allergy.”
“Reasonable.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Adrian said:
“I have security footage proving I was downtown at the time you collapsed.”
Grant glanced at Detective Ellison.
She already knew.
“Good.”
“So stop looking at me.”
“I’m not the one investigating.”
“You always hide behind technicalities when you’re angry.”
Grant’s face hardened.
“Did you know Nathan’s cuff link was in Walter’s room?”
Silence.
Real silence.
“What?”
“One of Nathan’s wedding cuff links.”
Adrian’s voice changed.
“Why would Walter have it?”
“I don’t know.”
“And Rebecca left Walter a letter.”
Longer pause.
“What letter?”
Grant stared.
“About Nathan.”
Adrian breathed out.
Then said something strange.
“Grant, do not read anything Rebecca wrote when she was frightened.”
Claire looked up.
Grant did too.
“What does that mean?”
“Grief made her suspicious.”
“Rebecca was alive when Nathan died.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
Grant’s voice dropped.
“I don’t.”
Adrian said:
“Your wife was becoming obsessed with internal accounts before the crash.”
Detective Ellison wrote quickly.
Grant’s expression changed.
“You knew?”
“Everyone knew.”
“I didn’t.”
Silence.
There it was.
Adrian realized he had said too much.
Grant asked:
“What accounts?”
Adrian ended the call.
No goodbye.
Claire felt cold.
Grant stared at the dead phone.
Then at Rebecca’s unopened letter being transported to investigators.
The poisoning was no longer a single attempted murder.
It had opened a door into six years of family deaths, missing evidence, and financial records someone had worked very hard to keep Grant from seeing.
And somewhere in Connecticut, Walter Pike was still missing.
May you like
Possibly alive.
Possibly the only person who knew why Rebecca had trusted him with the truth.
Related Stories
