Chapter 3 - The Blood on the Prescription
The next morning, the Moretti estate was bathed in a cold, grey mist rolling off the Atlantic.
Claire arrived at 8:00 AM for her morning shift, passing through the heavy iron security gates where two armed guards checked her car trunk and scanned her ID before waving her through.
She walked up the grand staircase carrying a tray of warm oatmeal, poached eggs, and fresh orange juice.
When she entered Victor’s room, the old man was already sitting in his armchair by the window, staring out at the crashing waves below. He looked smaller today, drained by the emotional explosion from the previous evening.
“You’re late,” Victor grunted without turning around.
“It’s 8:01 AM,” Claire replied, setting the breakfast tray on the small table beside him. “I apologize for the unpardonable sixty-second delay.”
Victor let out a faint huff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Claire pulled out a chair and sat opposite him. She didn't bring up the incident from the night before right away. Instead, she opened the plastic weekly pill organizer provided by the estate’s private pharmacy.
She picked up a small blue tablet—Victor’s daily blood pressure medication, Amlodipine.
She was about to hand it to him with a glass of water when her eyes caught something unusual.
Claire paused. She held the blue pill up to the sunlight filtering through the window pane.
As an emergency room nurse for six years, she had administered thousands of cardiac medications. Amlodipine five-milligram tablets were round, flat, and had a distinctive code stamped on the front: M 20.
The pill in her hand had the right color and shape, but the stamp was faint, uneven, and slightly chalky along the rim.
Claire pulled a small penlight from her pocket and clicked it on, examining the tiny tablet closely. When she pressed her fingernail against the edge, the pill didn't snap cleanly—it crumbled into a fine, powdery dust between her fingers.
Her stomach dropped into a cold abyss.
It wasn't a commercial pharmaceutical tablet. It was a poorly made compound pill—likely a dummy pill, or worse, a lethal substitute.
Victor watched her, his sharp grey eyes tracking her every move. “What is it?”
Claire wiped the white powder from her thumb onto a napkin, her mind racing at a million miles an hour.
“Victor,” Claire whispered, lowering her voice so the guard posted outside the oak door couldn't hear. “How long have you been taking this specific batch of blood pressure pills?”
Victor frowned, looking at the plastic organizer. “Since Tuesday. Raymond brought a fresh prescription from Dr. Mercer’s office.”
Tuesday. Today was Thursday.
For three days, the patriarch of the Moretti family had either been receiving zero blood pressure medication—explaining his sudden spikes in blood pressure and confusion—or he was slowly being dosed with something toxic.
Victor’s hand trembled as he reached out, touching Claire’s sleeve. His eyes met hers, cold and terrified. “I told you,” he whispered, his voice shaking with a raw, mortal fear. “I told you someone is trying to finish what the stroke started.”
Claire took a breath, closing her hand around the remaining pills in the organizer.
“Who has access to this pillbox?” she asked.
“Raymond gets the prescriptions filled,” Victor said quietly. “Sophia handles the household deliveries. And the night nurse... the one before you... she filled the daily trays.”
Claire looked at the door. If she went to the police, the Moretti family’s legal army would bury the investigation before it started. If she went straight to Dominic, and Dominic was the one behind it... she would be handing the evidence directly to the killer.
“Listen to me, Victor,” Claire said, her voice dropping into a firm, reassuring register. “You do not swallow a single pill in this house unless I hand it to you directly from an unopened, sealed bottle that I buy myself at a commercial pharmacy in Boston. Do you understand me?”
Victor nodded slowly. “What are you going to do with those?”
“I’m going to run a toxicology screen at my old hospital lab,” Claire said, sliding the suspicious pills into a sterile plastic specimen bag inside her kit.
Suddenly, the heavy oak door swung open without a knock.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
May you like
He wore a tailored dark grey suit, a black silk tie, and an expression that could freeze boiling water. His eyes swept across the room, landing immediately on the plastic specimen bag Claire was slipping into her leather bag.
“Is there a problem with my father’s medication, Nurse Donovan?” Dominic asked softly, stepping into the room.
