Chapter 4: What Patricia Found
The paper was a prescription.
Handwritten.
The name at the top was Eleanor Hale.
The medication listed was not one Dr.
Renner had ever prescribed.
Marcus read it twice.
Then he turned it over.
On the back, in different handwriting — smaller, hurried — were four words and a phone number.
*She won't last long.*
He set the paper down on the bedside table carefully, the way you set down something you don't want to disturb.
"Where did you find this?" he asked.
Patricia kept her voice low.
"In the pocket of Audrey's cardigan.
The orange one.
She left it on the chair in here two days ago and asked me to hang it up.
I felt something in the pocket when I picked it up." She paused.
"I should have brought it to you immediately.
I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
Patricia looked at the door.
"Afraid she'd find out I had it.
Afraid of what she'd do." She folded her hands in her lap.
"I've seen how she looks at me when she thinks I'm not paying attention.
Like I'm an inconvenience she hasn't dealt with yet."
Marcus stood.
He picked up the paper again and photographed it with his phone — front and back — before folding it and placing it in his breast pocket.
"You did the right thing," he said.
"You're not going to be alone in this."
Dr.
Renner had finished her examination.
She straightened up from the bedside and removed her stethoscope.
"Eleanor's vitals are stable now," she said.
"But I want her transferred to Mercy General tonight for a full blood panel.
I need to know exactly what she was given and in what quantity." She looked at Marcus directly.
"And I need to know if this has happened before."
"It has," Patricia said quietly.
Both of them looked at her.
"Not like today.
But there have been other times.
Small things.
A dose that seemed too high.
A glass of water left just out of reach.
The call button moved to the other side of the bed." She stopped.
"I told myself I was being paranoid."
"You weren't," Dr.
Renner said.
Marcus walked to the window.
The afternoon light was fading.
In the garden below, he could see one of the guards standing near the side gate, arms folded.
"I need to make a call," he said.
He stepped into the corner of the room and dialed.
It rang twice.
"It's me," he said when the line picked up.
"I need you here.
Tonight." A pause.
"Bring everything we discussed.
Yes.
All of it."
He ended the call and turned back to the room.
"Who was that?" Dr.
Renner asked.
"Someone who has been building a file on Audrey for the past six weeks," Marcus said.
"At my request."
The doctor's eyebrows rose slightly.
"You suspected this before today."
"I suspected something.
I didn't know the shape of it yet." He looked at his mother, who had drifted into a shallow sleep, her chest rising and falling with slow, careful breaths.
"Now I do."
In the hallway outside, they heard footsteps.
Unhurried.
Deliberate.
Audrey's heels on the hardwood floor, moving toward the front staircase.
One of the guards said something.
Her footsteps stopped.
Then her voice, sharp and controlled: "I beg your pardon.
This is my home."
Marcus moved to the door and opened it.
Audrey stood at the top of the stairs, her coat over her arm, her handbag on her shoulder.
She had been leaving.
Their eyes met across the length of the hallway.
"The car isn't for you," Marcus said.
"It's for my mother.
She's going to the hospital." He paused.
"You're staying here."
Audrey's grip on her handbag tightened.
"You can't keep me in this house."
"I'm not keeping you anywhere." He held her gaze.
"But the moment you walk out that door, the police will have everything they need to bring you back in a very different way."
Audrey didn't move.
"You're bluffing," she said.
Marcus said nothing.
He simply waited.
Audrey's eyes moved to the guard at the bottom of the stairs.
Then back to Marcus.
Then, almost imperceptibly, to the breast pocket of his jacket — where the folded paper now sat.
Her expression shifted.
Just slightly.
Just enough.
She took one step back from the staircase.
And Marcus knew, in that moment, that she had recognized the paper.
She knew exactly what was written on the back of it.
May you like
Which meant she also knew who had written it.
And that name — whoever it was — had not yet appeared in any of this.
