Chapter 1 - 5:17 A.M.
The smile disappeared the moment Megan opened her eyes.
Not because I regretted it.
Because I had no idea what to do with it.
Her head lifted slowly from the edge of my mattress. For a second, she looked lost. Then she remembered where she was, looked down at my hand inside hers, and released me as though she had accidentally grabbed a live wire.
“Oh.”
Her voice was rough with sleep.
Noah stirred beneath the yellow blanket across her lap.
Megan immediately put one hand over his back.
“Sorry.”
I looked at the clock.
5:17 a.m.
“You stayed all night.”
She blinked at me.
“You had a fever of one hundred four.”
“That was not an answer.”
“It felt like one.”
My head still ached. Every joint felt packed with sand. The room smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol, orange juice, and whatever lemon cleaner Nancy used in the upstairs hallway.
Megan stood carefully so she would not wake her son.
The movement pulled her blouse loose at one shoulder. She looked exhausted enough to fall over.
“You should have called Nancy.”
“I did.”
“Marcus.”
“Him too.”
“My doctor.”
Her expression changed.
That caught my attention.
“What?”
Megan looked toward the closed bedroom door.
“Nothing.”
“That word is usually followed by something irritating.”
“Then I’m maintaining consistency.”
“Megan.”
She sighed.
Noah made a small sound against her shoulder.
She adjusted him.
“Dr. Vale came at eleven.”
“I remember.”
“You remember arguing with him for ten minutes because you didn’t want to go to the hospital?”
“That sounds plausible.”
“You called the ambulance crew vultures.”
“That sounds less plausible.”
“You also told Marcus his tie looked cheap.”
“That sounds accurate.”
The corner of her mouth moved.
Then it vanished.
“Dr. Vale gave you something for the fever.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“He said he gave you something.”
“What is the difference?”
“The difference is that after he left, your temperature went up.”
I stared at her.
“That happens.”
“Yes.”
She walked toward the bedside table and picked up a small plastic medicine cup.
Inside was a white tablet.
“This fell beneath the bed.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you holding it like evidence?”
“Because it does not match the pills in the bottle Dr. Vale left.”
My headache sharpened.
Megan placed the tablet beside the orange prescription bottle.
The bottle held round tablets stamped with a line across the center.
The loose pill was oval.
No line.
Different coating.
“You noticed that at three in the morning?”
“I have a toddler.”
“That does not qualify you as a pharmacist.”
“No. But it qualifies me to notice when medicine looks wrong.”
She folded her arms.
“And I used to work as a medical assistant.”
I looked at her.
That was new.
“When?”
“Before Noah.”
“Why is that not in your employment file?”
“Because you hired me to clean windows, not take your blood pressure.”
“I did not hire you.”
“Nancy did.”
“Under my roof.”
She gave me a tired look.
“Yes, emperor.”
I would have fired anyone else for less.
Instead I found myself looking at the tablet.
“What happened after you noticed it?”
“I called the number on the discharge paperwork from the ambulance team.”
“You called an ambulance?”
“Nancy did when you stopped making sense.”
I remembered fragments.
Marcus lifting me.
A blood pressure cuff.
Bright light.
Someone asking my name.
Then nothing.
“They did not take me.”
“You refused.”
“Of course.”
“You were impossible.”
“Again. Plausible.”
Megan moved toward the window.
“When your fever rose again, I called the paramedic supervisor. He told me not to give you any more of the medicine until somebody could identify the tablet.”
“And then?”
“And then you started shivering so hard I thought you were going to fall out of bed.”
Her voice changed.
Quiet.
I looked at her.
“For a while I thought—”
She stopped.
“What?”
“That you were getting worse.”
“I was.”
“I know.”
Something in her face irritated me because it looked too close to fear.
“You should have left.”
She stared.
“Excuse me?”
“You have a child.”
“Yes.”
“You brought him into the bedroom of a sick man because?”
“Because the sitter canceled after midnight and Nancy told me to go home, but your temperature hit one hundred four point three.”
“That is not your responsibility.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Megan looked at Noah.
Then back at me.
“Because everybody else in this house looked at you like they were waiting for instructions.”
I said nothing.
“You were barely conscious,” she continued. “Nancy was scared. Marcus was on the phone with security. Dr. Vale had already left. Every person in the hallway kept asking what you wanted.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You weren’t in a condition to want anything.”
“So you decided for me.”
“Yes.”
People did not say yes to that accusation.
Not comfortably.
Megan did.
“I put cold towels on you. Nancy brought the basin. I checked your temperature every twenty minutes.”
“And held my hand.”
Her cheeks colored.
“You kept reaching for mine.”
I remembered none of it.
That bothered me more than I expected.
“What did I say?”
“Mostly nonsense.”
“Megan.”
She looked away.
“You asked for your father.”
The room went still.
Outside, Atlanta was still dark.
My father had been dead twenty years.
I had not said the word Dad in front of another person since the funeral.
“What exactly did I say?”
“I don’t think it matters.”
“I do.”
She adjusted Noah again.
“You said, ‘Don’t let him go downstairs.’”
My blood cooled.
“What?”
“That was all.”
“Anything else?”
“Later you said, ‘The blue door.’”
I stared at her.
There had been a blue door in the house where I grew up.
Not this estate.
The old Mason residence in Cascade Heights.
Basement level.
My father’s private office.
The room where I found him after the gunshot.
I had not entered that house in nineteen years.
“Megan.”
“Yes?”
“Who else heard me?”
She thought.
“Nancy came in once.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
“Dr. Vale?”
“He was gone.”
I reached for my phone.
My hand shook.
Not enough for most people to notice.
Megan noticed.
She put the phone in my hand without comment.
I called Marcus.
He answered on the first ring.
“Boss.”
“Where are you?”
“Downstairs.”
“Come up.”
“Now?”
“No. Christmas.”
A pause.
“Coming.”
I ended the call.
Megan looked at the pill again.
“You should send that somewhere independent.”
“Independent of what?”
“Your doctor.”
I studied her.
“You think Adrian Vale tried to poison me.”
“I think I found a pill that does not match the bottle he says it came from.”
“Those are different statements.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She looked offended.
“What?”
“Most people would have skipped the distinction.”
“I don’t like accusing people of attempted murder before breakfast.”
“Noah woke.
He blinked up at me from beneath the yellow blanket.
Brown eyes.
Soft dark hair sticking in every direction.
He stared solemnly at my wheelchair beside the bed.
Then at me.
“Up.”
Megan smiled tiredly.
“You are up.”
He pointed at me.
“Up.”
“He means you.”
“I gathered.”
Megan shifted him higher.
“He saw you sitting in your chair yesterday.”
I looked at the wheelchair.
The fever had been bad enough that Marcus and two men had moved me into bed.
I hated being moved.
I hated needing it more.
Noah pointed again.
“Wheel.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Wheel.”
He seemed pleased we agreed.
Then his gaze landed on the glass of orange juice.
“Juice.”
“No.”
Megan pulled him closer.
“Noah, that is not yours.”
He reached.
I picked up the glass before he could touch it.
Something flashed beneath the rim.
A faint blue residue.
I stared.
“Megan.”
She saw my expression.
“What?”
“Did you pour this?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Nancy brought the tray at midnight.”
I smelled it.
Orange.
Nothing else.
Megan leaned closer.
“Don’t drink that.”
“I was not planning to.”
Marcus entered without knocking.
Forty-four years old, six feet four, former Marine, head of my security for eleven years.
He took one look at the room.
“Temperature?”
“Lower.”
His shoulders eased slightly.
Then he noticed Megan.
Then Noah.
Then our expressions.
“What happened?”
I held up the glass.
“Bag this.”
Marcus did not ask why.
He removed a clear evidence pouch from the emergency medical kit on the dresser.
Megan raised an eyebrow.
“You keep evidence bags in the bedroom?”
“I keep prepared people in the house.”
“That’s normal.”
Marcus ignored her.
He sealed the juice.
I pointed toward the pill.
“And that.”
He bagged it separately.
“Where are we sending them?”
“Not Vale.”
Marcus looked at me.
That was the first sign he understood the situation had changed.
“Who?”
“Dr. Evelyn Hart at Emory.”
“She owes you?”
“No.”
“Then why her?”
“Because she dislikes me.”
Megan frowned.
“That is your qualification?”
“It reduces the chance she is bought.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Then his phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
His face went blank.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at Megan.
Then at me.
“Kitchen camera feed.”
“What about it?”
“The cameras cut out for eleven minutes last night.”
“When?”
“Ten fifty-eight to eleven oh-nine.”
Dr. Vale arrived at eleven.
Nancy brought orange juice at midnight.
My attention sharpened.
“Who accessed the kitchen during the outage?”
“We’re pulling door logs.”
Megan went still.
I noticed.
“What?”
“Ten fifty-eight.”
“Yes.”
“That was when Noah started crying.”
I looked at her.
She tightened her hold on him.
“I was in the laundry room finishing linens. I remember the time because I checked my phone before I went to the staff apartment.”
“And?”
“There was a man in the service hallway.”
Marcus turned toward her.
“Who?”
“I thought he worked for you.”
“Description.”
“Gray hair. Maybe late fifties. Expensive coat. He wasn’t dressed like staff.”
Marcus and I exchanged a look.
There were hundreds of men in Atlanta who fit that description.
Only one had a habit of entering my house as if he still owned part of it.
“My uncle,” I said.
Megan’s eyes narrowed.
“Raymond?”
“You know him?”
“Everyone does.”
Raymond Mason.
My father’s younger brother.
Former chief operating officer of Mason Hospitality.
Now chairman emeritus.
Still invited to holidays.
Still capable of entering most Mason properties without being stopped.
Marcus immediately dialed downstairs security.
“Pull all east service entrances between ten thirty and eleven thirty. Find Raymond Mason.”
He listened.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
Marcus slowly lowered the phone.
“Sir.”
I hated that word when he used it that way.
“What?”
“Raymond was here.”
“When?”
“Security log shows his vehicle entered at ten forty-seven.”
“And left?”
“It didn’t.”
The room went quiet.
Megan looked toward the bedroom door.
“Where is he?”
Marcus’s eyes met mine.
“We don’t know.”
Then Noah reached toward the floor.
Something had slipped from beneath his faded yellow blanket.
A small brass key.
Megan stared.
“That isn’t mine.”
Marcus bent and picked it up.
A black tag was attached.
One number.
214.
My entire body went cold.
I knew that key.
Or one exactly like it.
Twenty years earlier, the morning my father died, he had pressed a brass key into my hand and told me one thing.
If anything happens to me, find 214.
I had lost it that night.
Or believed I had.
May you like
Now the same number lay in Marcus’s palm beneath my sickbed.
And Megan Foster’s eighteen-month-old son had carried it into my room.
