Chapter 3 - THE TUESDAY INJECTIONS
The toxicologist’s name was Dr. Mina Shah.
Delia trusted her because Mina had once corrected a senior surgeon in front of twelve residents and then eaten a granola bar while he yelled.
They met before dawn in a private laboratory beneath St. Catherine’s.
Adrian came.
Delia had not invited him.
She considered sending him away.
Then she saw how badly he was walking.
His right leg dragged slightly.
His shoulders were too rigid.
He had missed two therapy days.
She hated that her clinical instincts activated automatically.
“Sit.”
He looked at her.
Delia pointed toward the chair.
“This is not employment. This is gravity.”
He sat.
Mina arrived wearing navy scrubs and an expression of professional suspicion.
“You are Adrian Ferrante.”
“Yes.”
“You have an unusual number of private blood draws.”
“Yes.”
“You understand I report poisoning if I find it.”
Adrian looked at her.
“If that is what you find.”
“Good.”
Mina took samples.
She also requested archived serum from Adrian’s previous hospital admissions.
Ferrante money could do many things.
Retrieving frozen samples before breakfast turned out to be one of them.
While they waited, Delia reviewed his old charts.
Something bothered her.
Creatine kinase fluctuations.
Cortisol.
Electrolytes.
Nothing dramatic.
Exactly the point.
A drug designed to weaken without hospitalizing would stay near the edges.
Mina sat beside her.
“What do you suspect?”
“Repeated low-dose sedative or neuromuscular agent.”
“Benzodiazepine?”
“Too easy to detect.”
“Clonidine?”
“Possible.”
“Botulinum microdosing?”
Delia looked up.
Mina looked back.
“Unlikely,” both said together.
Adrian watched.
“This is reassuring.”
“No one asked you,” Delia said.
His mouth almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
Mina noticed.
She knew Delia too well.
After Adrian left for a call, Mina leaned closer.
“That is the man who fired you?”
“Yes.”
“Because he thought Jonah was your lover?”
Delia stared.
“How do you know that?”
“Jonah called me last night.”
“I hate everyone.”
“Reasonable.”
Mina looked toward the door.
“He is pretty.”
“He is a criminal.”
“Two things can be true.”
“Please stop.”
“Also angry.”
“Mina.”
“And in love with you.”
Delia closed the chart.
“No.”
“Fine.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine.”
“He was jealous.”
“Yes.”
“That is not love.”
Mina became serious.
“No. It is not.”
Delia looked at her.
Mina continued.
“What he does after being jealous might tell you something. What he did first tells you something too.”
That was why Delia trusted her.
No romantic excuses.
No pretending cruelty became flattering because it came from a powerful man.
“Exactly.”
They returned to the samples.
By noon, Mina found the first anomaly.
Dexmedetomidine metabolite.
Very low level.
Too low for procedural sedation.
Present in samples taken after two Tuesday injections.
Absent from samples before them.
Delia stared.
“That could explain the fatigue.”
“Yes.”
“But not the motor delay.”
Mina pulled another screen.
“Trace tizanidine metabolite.”
Delia’s stomach turned.
Two centrally acting agents.
Together, small doses could produce weakness, dizziness, low blood pressure, delayed reaction.
Enough to make rehabilitation look stalled.
Not enough to raise alarm if the patient was already recovering from catastrophic injuries.
Someone had been chemically sabotaging Adrian.
Mina looked at the records.
“Who administered?”
“Dr. Salvatore Riva.”
Adrian’s private physician for twelve years.
Delia called Matteo.
His silence after she explained was longer than usual.
Then:
“Do not leave the lab.”
“I am not taking orders.”
“Request.”
“Better.”
“Please do not leave.”
Delia looked at Mina.
“Fine.”
Adrian arrived twenty minutes later.
He read the report.
His expression did not change.
That was how Delia knew he was furious.
“Riva.”
“Yes,” Mina said. “Or someone with access to his prepared syringes.”
Adrian looked at Delia.
“You asked for labels.”
“Twice.”
“He refused.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
She stared.
“I did.”
He stopped.
“You said—”
“I said the Tuesday injection worried me. You told me Riva had kept your family alive since before I finished nursing school.”
Memory returned to his face.
Delia continued.
“You trusted him. You dismissed me.”
Adrian looked away.
A smaller version of the same mistake.
Trusting his assumption over her observation.
Mina stood.
“I am going to pretend I did not hear the emotionally significant part and call the hospital toxicology director.”
She left.
Adrian remained.
“I owe you more than one apology.”
“Yes.”
“I understand why you do not want it today.”
“That is progress.”
He looked at her notebook.
“How long did you suspect?”
“Not sabotage. Just something wrong.”
“Why keep notes in your personal book?”
“Because Riva’s charts were too clean.”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened.
“What do you mean?”
“No normal clinician writes like that.”
She pulled a copy.
“No side effects. Patient tolerated well. Continue protocol.”
“So?”
“Every week?”
“Yes.”
“You complained about nausea twice. Your blood pressure dropped. You refused one dose because you said it made your head feel packed with cotton.”
He remembered.
“Riva documented no adverse effects.”
Delia nodded.
“That is not a medical chart. That is a legal defense.”
Adrian stared at the page.
Someone had been building a record.
Not just weakening him.
Preparing to prove nothing improper happened.
Matteo arrived.
“Riva is gone.”
Of course.
“Phone off. House empty. Clinic assistant says he left yesterday.”
“Before Delia was fired?”
“Yes.”
The timeline tightened.
Riva knew Delia was about to be removed.
Or caused it.
Adrian said, “Find him.”
Matteo nodded.
Delia said, “Alive.”
Both men looked at her.
She folded her arms.
“If you kill the man who knows who ordered this, I will personally report both of you.”
Matteo smiled faintly.
“I missed her.”
Adrian ignored him.
“Alive.”
Good.
Then Mina returned carrying a sealed bag.
“We have another problem.”
Inside was one archived syringe cap from Adrian’s home health kit.
“How did you get that?”
Mina looked at Delia.
“You.”
Delia frowned.
“I did not bring that.”
“No. Your notebook says you taped two used caps to the back cover after Riva refused labels.”
Delia stared.
She had forgotten.
Months of habit.
She opened the back pocket.
One cap remained.
The other was missing.
Mina held it.
“Jonah dropped your box last night when the window broke. This fell out. He gave it to me.”
Delia looked at Adrian.
The same cardboard box his guards had packed.
The same box left in the rain.
Evidence had been sitting inside it.
Mina had swabbed the cap.
It contained a partial fingerprint.
Not Riva.
Matteo sent it through a private database.
The result came back within an hour.
Nico Ferrante.
Adrian’s cousin.
His father’s sister’s son.
Chief financial officer of three Ferrante companies.
One of the few people who had master access to the estate medical wing.
Adrian stared at the name.
“Nico was there on Tuesdays.”
Delia remembered.
Always with financial papers.
Always complaining Adrian’s recovery sessions delayed signatures.
Always friendly.
Too friendly.
Matteo said, “Motive?”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“If I remained medically incapacitated for twelve months, family voting rules transferred temporary operational authority.”
“To Nico?”
“Yes.”
“And if you died?” Delia asked.
Adrian looked at her.
“Permanent succession would become complicated.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Nico would control enough votes to win.”
Delia felt cold.
A weak Adrian was profitable.
A dead Adrian was more profitable.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
The hotel hallway.
Taken minutes earlier.
Delia entering the lab.
Under it:
YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THE SEVERANCE.
Adrian saw.
His face changed.
Delia’s fear arrived.
Then anger.
She typed a reply before anyone could stop her.
YOU SHOULD HAVE USED BETTER DRUGS.
Adrian stared.
Matteo laughed.
Mina said, “I like her.”
The sender replied immediately.
NEXT TIME WE WILL.
Adrian reached for Delia’s phone.
She pulled it away.
“No.”
“I need the number.”
“Matteo can copy it.”
“Delia.”
“Conversation.”
He stopped.
The word had become a line between the old Adrian and whatever he might become.
He exhaled.
“May Matteo copy it?”
“Yes.”
Matteo did.
Adrian looked at Delia.
“You are not going back to the hotel.”
She stared.
He corrected himself.
“I do not think the hotel is secure enough.”
“Better.”
“What do you suggest?” he asked.
She thought.
Not his estate.
Not Jonah’s apartment.
Not her apartment.
Then Mina said, “My aunt owns a closed rehabilitation clinic in Westchester.”
Everyone looked.
“It is empty for renovation. Security shutters. Medical generator. No one connects it to any of you.”
Delia nodded.
“I choose that.”
Adrian accepted.
No argument.
That mattered.
Then Matteo’s phone rang.
He listened.
His face changed.
“We found Riva.”
“Where?” Adrian asked.
Matteo looked at Delia.
“St. Catherine’s parking garage.”
“Alive?”
A pause.
“No.”
Delia closed her eyes.
On Riva’s body, police found one item placed carefully inside his coat pocket.
A laminated exercise card.
Delia’s handwriting.
That night in Westchester, Delia could not sleep.
The closed rehabilitation clinic had eight empty patient rooms, all painted the same depressing beige. She chose one with a window overlooking a construction dumpster because it felt less like hiding if the view was ugly.
At 2:13 a.m., she found Adrian in the old therapy gym.
He was standing between parallel bars.
Alone.
“No.”
He looked over.
“I did not ask a question.”
“You are not cleared to practice alone.”
“I am not your patient.”
“That sentence does not make falling smarter.”
He tightened his hands on the rails.
“I cannot sleep.”
“Neither can I.”
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Adrian said, “I keep thinking about the message.”
“SHE WAS NEVER YOURS?”
His expression tightened.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He looked offended.
“Good?”
“It bothers you because it is true.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you?”
Delia crossed the room.
“No person is ever yours. Not in the way that message meant. Not me. Not staff. Not family.”
Adrian stared at the floor.
“In my world, possession and protection get confused.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes intentionally.”
“I know that too.”
He looked at her.
“I do not want to become my world.”
The admission was quiet.
Delia believed it.
Wanting was not enough.
But it was somewhere to begin.
“Then start by sitting down before you fall.”
He almost smiled.
This time, he listened.
May you like
Someone was not only removing witnesses.
They were building a story in which Delia Hayes looked connected to every piece of it.
