Chapter 8 - Three AttemptsThe first attempt happened on Adrian’s yacht.
Victoria told us everything.
Two years earlier, during a charity weekend off Nantucket, Adrian became violently ill after dinner.
Everyone assumed food poisoning.
He recovered within twenty-four hours.
Victoria knew otherwise.
“My mother had Pierce put something in his drink.”
“Why?”
“To test dosage.”
Agent Brooks entered the room halfway through the confession and began recording.
Victoria continued.
The second attempt came four months later.
Adrian’s helicopter developed a fuel-pressure malfunction shortly before takeoff.
The pilot caught it during inspection.
A mechanic later claimed the defect was accidental.
“That mechanic received two hundred thousand dollars through one of my mother’s companies,” Victoria said.
“And the third was the crash,” Brooks said.
Victoria nodded.
“Why didn’t you stop her?”
I asked.
The question sounded inadequate even to me.
Victoria looked at the blanket.
“I told myself it wasn’t real.”
“After three attempts?”
“After the yacht, she said she only wanted him sick enough to cancel a merger.”
“And the helicopter?”
“She told me she didn’t know anything about it.”
“And the crash?”
Tears filled Victoria’s eyes.
“I knew.”
I stood up.
“You knew someone was planning to kill the man you supposedly loved.”
“I didn’t know when.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
“And after he survived, you moved into his house.”
“Yes.”
“You gave him Pierce’s medication.”
“Yes.”
“You watched him struggle every day.”
“Yes.”
The word broke.
I wanted to hate her simply.
It would have been easier.
But Victoria wasn’t a monster from a fairy tale.
She was worse in a more ordinary way.
She had made one selfish choice after another until the distance between complicity and participation disappeared.
Brooks asked, “Where is Rachel now?”
Victoria swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
“What assets does she control?”
“Several houses. A plane. Accounts overseas.”
“Where would she go?”
“Somewhere she thinks she still has power.”
Brooks stepped out to coordinate.
I remained.
Victoria looked at me.
“You think I deserve prison.”
“Yes.”
She winced.
“You didn’t hesitate.”
“You asked.”
“I hated you the second you caught my wrist.”
“I noticed.”
“You made me look weak.”
“No. I stopped you from hitting someone.”
“That’s not how it felt.”
“Then maybe you were more worried about looking powerful than being decent.”
She stared at me.
Eventually she whispered, “Probably.”
I left before dawn.
Adrian was waiting in the hospital lobby.
Alone.
His wheelchair faced the windows.
“You came.”
He turned.
“You sound surprised.”
“I figured Nathan chained you to a conference table.”
“He tried.”
“How much did they tell you?”
“Enough.”
He studied my face.
“Are you okay?”
“Your ex-fiancée just confessed that she knew about three attempts on your life. Why are you asking me?”
“Because you spent an hour hearing it.”
“That is an annoyingly reasonable answer.”
He smiled faintly.
Then the smile disappeared.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough to stop it.”
He nodded once.
Pain moved across his face.
“She sat beside me in intensive care.”
I had no answer.
“She cried when doctors told me I might never walk.”
His voice broke slightly.
“She held my hand.”
I sat beside him.
Adrian stared at the floor.
“Do you know what keeps bothering me?”
“What?”
“I loved her.”
“That isn’t a crime.”
“I trusted someone who wanted access to my company badly enough to watch me suffer.”
“That doesn't make you stupid.”
“It feels stupid.”
“Trust isn’t stupidity.”
He looked at me.
“What is it?”
“A risk.”
“Very philosophical for someone who was serving champagne forty-eight hours ago.”
“Formerly serving champagne.”
“My mistake.”
His hand rested between us.
I almost touched it.
Almost.
Then his phone rang.
Dr. Shaw.
The laboratory results were back.
Adrian put the call on speaker.
“The pills contained baclofen at a dangerously elevated dose combined with another investigational compound,” Shaw said.
“Pierce’s?”
“Possibly. We’re comparing it to materials recovered from the Langley property.”
“What does that mean for recovery?”
A pause.
“We need to be careful.”
“Meaning you’re about to say something I won’t like.”
“Meaning I don’t know how much of your current weakness is due to the original injury and how much may have been prolonged by medication.”
“So I could recover further?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“I cannot responsibly answer that.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Can I walk?”
“You stood for forty-seven seconds yesterday.”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Actually, while you were arguing with me about being hospitalized, you stood for forty-seven.”
I laughed.
Adrian looked offended.
Shaw continued, “Your nervous system is showing stronger responses since we began reducing the medication.”
“When do we start therapy?”
“You never stopped.”
“No. Real therapy.”
“Elena, would you please tell him—”
“Absolutely not.”
Shaw laughed.
“I like her.”
“You’ve met twice.”
“That was enough.”
When the call ended, Adrian looked lighter.
Not happy.
Hope is heavier than happiness sometimes.
It carries fear with it.
“What if I don’t walk?” he asked.
The question surprised me.
“Then you don’t.”
“That simple?”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“But walking isn’t what makes all of this matter.”
He watched me.
“They took choice away from you. Recovery means getting choices back. Whatever your legs do.”
For a moment, the lobby disappeared.
There was only the way he looked at me.
Then Agent Brooks called.
Rachel Langley had been located.
Or at least her plane had.
It was preparing to leave Teterboro Airport for Montreal.
Federal agents moved to stop it.
The plane never departed.
Rachel wasn’t aboard.
Only two pilots.
The passenger manifest had been falsified.
“She knew we would track the plane,” Brooks said.
Adrian looked furious.
“So where is she?”
Nobody knew.
Then I remembered my mother’s photograph.
Rachel had delivered it personally.
Not mailed.
Not sent by courier.
She had come to our building.
Why?
To frighten me.
Or to search for something.
I called Mom.
“Did Rachel enter the apartment?”
“No.”
“Did Dad leave anything from Saint Matthew?”
Silence.
“Elena…”
“Mom?”
“There was a box.”
My heart accelerated.
“What box?”
“Your father told me never to open it unless someone came asking about Dr. Pierce.”
I stood.
“Where is it?”
“The storage room downstairs.”
We reached my apartment with federal agents twenty minutes later.
The building superintendent opened the basement.
My mother led us past bicycles, old furniture, and dusty Christmas decorations.
Locker 3B.
Inside was a metal toolbox.
My father’s initials were scratched into the lid.
C.T.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Wrenches.
Electrical tape.
Old work gloves.
Beneath them, a sealed plastic envelope.
Inside were photocopied patient charts.
Medication logs.
And a handwritten notebook.
Pierce’s name appeared repeatedly.
So did Rachel Langley’s.
At the bottom was a USB drive.
Nathan plugged it into a federal laptop.
One audio file appeared.
Fourteen years old.
We played it.
Pierce’s voice came first.
“He won’t stay quiet.”
Rachel answered.
“Then make sure he understands what quiet is worth.”
“He refused the money.”
“Everyone accepts something.”
“He says he’ll go to the state.”
Then Rachel said seven words that made my mother begin crying.
“Then he shouldn’t make it home tomorrow.”
My father’s accident happened the next day.
I stared at the waveform on the computer screen.
For thirteen years, he had carried the truth in silence.
Not because he was afraid for himself.
Because he was protecting us.
Agent Brooks immediately took the evidence.
That recording transformed the investigation.
Rachel was no longer merely a suspect in financial fraud.
She was being investigated for conspiracy connected to multiple violent acts.
But she was still missing.
That night, I returned home under federal protection.
Mateo tried to joke about having government agents in the hallway.
Mom made coffee nobody drank.
At 1:03 a.m., my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Adrian.
Sleeping in a hospital room.
Taken less than five minutes earlier.
Below it were six words.
YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE TAUGHT YOU BETTER.
I screamed for the agent outside.
May you like
But before he entered, another message arrived.
THIS TIME, I WON’T MISS.
