Chapter 4 - THE SECOND PATIENTThe threat changed everything.
Until then, Ivan had been a witness.
Now he was part of the story.
Hospital security assigned an officer outside Laura’s room. Police escorted Ivan to his car. Maya insisted he stop sharing updates through personal devices.
Richard remained missing.
Elise Mercer retained an attorney and stopped answering questions.
And Jenna Park, the pharmacy technician who had called Maya, vanished before police could bring her in.
Her apartment door was unlocked.
Her daughter was safe at her ex-husband’s home.
Jenna’s purse remained on the kitchen table.
Her phone was found smashed in a dumpster two blocks away.
By Sunday morning, Maya had stopped calling it a domestic poisoning.
Someone was cleaning up evidence.
Then the second patient arrived.
His name was Leonard Price, sixty-eight, a retired accountant.
He was discovered unconscious at home by his neighbor.
Slowed breathing.
Dangerously low blood pressure.
A patch attached beneath his shoulder.
Same manufacturer.
Same batch.
Ivan saw the tox screen and felt his skin crawl.
“Call Maya.”
She arrived within thirty minutes.
“Connection?”
Ivan handed her Leonard’s chart.
“There’s one.”
“What?”
“His pharmacy.”
Mercer Family Pharmacy.
Maya stared at him.
“That makes two.”
“No.”
Ivan opened another tab.
“I checked medication-event reports from affiliated hospitals.”
Maya watched as he displayed three cases.
Three older patients over eighteen months.
All experienced unexplained respiratory collapse.
All survived.
All used Mercer Family Pharmacy.
“Did they all have patches?”
“Not documented.”
“Then we don’t know.”
“No. But I called one of the attending doctors. He remembered finding adhesive residue on one patient’s shoulder.”
Maya sat down.
“This is bigger than Laura.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Within hours, investigators obtained emergency warrants.
Police searched the pharmacy after closing.
Behind perfectly organized shelves and polished counters, they found a locked cabinet not listed in official inventory documents.
Inside were medications acquired through wholesalers using falsified patient orders.
Sedatives.
Potent analgesics.
Injectables.
And a ledger.
Not names.
Initials.
Dates.
Dollar amounts.
Maya photographed every page.
One entry made her stop.
L.H. — 250K — FRI
Laura Hale.
A quarter of a million dollars.
Another:
L.P. — 180K — SUN
Leonard Price.
That day.
“Someone paid for these people to be poisoned,” Maya said.
A forensic accountant was assigned.
By nightfall, police identified a shell company linked to Elise Mercer.
Money entered the account from insurance settlements, inheritance disputes, and private transfers.
Maya began seeing the pattern.
None of the previous victims had died.
But each had experienced a major health crisis shortly before a financial event.
One changed a will.
Another sold a business.
A third transferred power of attorney to his nephew.
The scheme might not have been murder.
It might have been coercion.
Make someone sick.
Make them afraid.
Make them dependent.
Then take what you wanted.
But Laura?
Laura had not been pressured to sign anything.
At least, not yet.
Maya returned to the hospital.
“Does Laura have money?”
Ivan almost laughed.
“Richard and Laura are comfortable, but not quarter-million-dollar-contract comfortable.”
“Separate assets?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Laura did.
When Maya asked, she became silent.
“My father died six months ago,” she finally said.
“Did he leave you money?”
“A trust.”
“How much?”
“About twelve million dollars.”
Ivan blinked.
He had no idea.
“Does Richard know?”
“Yes.”
“Can he access it?”
“No.”
“Who inherits if you die?”
Laura looked away.
“Until three months ago, Richard.”
“And now?”
“My children.”
Maya’s posture changed.
“Did Richard know you changed your will?”
“Yes.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He was furious.”
“Why did you change it?”
Laura’s eyes filled.
“Because I discovered he had already started taking money from me.”
She told them Richard had forged her signature on investment documents.
Almost $600,000 was gone.
When she confronted him, he claimed he was trying to rescue a failing business.
“What business?” Maya asked.
“Some pharmaceutical investment with Elise.”
There it was.
The connection.
Richard and Elise were financially entangled.
Laura threatened divorce.
If she filed, Richard risked exposure for fraud.
If Laura died, her new will denied him the trust.
So poisoning her seemed useless.
Unless Richard didn’t know the will had already been finalized.
“Who knew?” Maya asked.
“My attorney.”
“Anyone else?”
“My daughter.”
“Richard?”
“I told him I planned to change it. I never told him the paperwork was complete.”
So Richard may have believed killing Laura would still deliver twelve million dollars.
Ivan felt nauseous.
His friend had once driven through a blizzard to sit beside Ivan after his mother died.
Now that same man might have tried to kill his own wife for money.
Maya’s phone buzzed.
She glanced down.
“Richard’s credit card was just used.”
“Where?”
“Gas station in Duluth.”
Two and a half hours north.
Police pulled camera footage.
Richard appeared on screen wearing a baseball cap.
He bought coffee.
Gas.
And two prepaid phones.
He was alone.
Until the camera caught the passenger side of his vehicle.
A woman stepped out.
Jenna Park.
The missing pharmacy technician.
But she wasn’t bound.
She wasn’t frightened.
She walked beside Richard.
Then she kissed him.
Maya replayed the clip.
Ivan stared.
“What the hell?”
Maya’s expression hardened.
“Apparently Jenna wasn’t a witness.”
“Then what is she?”
“Maybe the reason Richard ran.”
The answer came forty minutes later.
A search of Jenna’s financial records revealed deposits totaling $92,000 over eight months.
All from the same shell company connected to Elise.
Then investigators discovered something worse.
Jenna’s name appeared in the ledger beside a code:
JP — OPERATIONS.
She had not merely adjusted inventory.
She had helped manage it.
And in Duluth, Richard Hale opened one of his new prepaid phones and made a single call.
Not to his lawyer.
Not to his children.
Not to Elise.
He called Dr. Ivan Sterling.
Ivan answered.
“Richard.”
His old friend whispered:
“I didn’t poison Laura.”
Ivan said nothing.
“Ivan, listen to me. Elise is going to kill everyone who can connect her to that ledger.”
“Then turn yourself in.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the police think Jenna is helping me.”
“She is with you.”
“I know.”
Richard’s voice shook.
“She put a gun in my ribs outside the airport and told me to drive.”
Ivan stood.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know how long I can—”
A woman’s voice sounded in the background.
“Hang up.”
Richard whispered, “Ivan, find the Greenbridge files.”
“What files?”
The line went dead.
Ivan stared at his phone.
Maya immediately asked, “What did he say?”
Ivan looked at her.
“He said to find something called the Greenbridge files.”
Maya’s face changed.
“You know what that means?”
“No.”
“I do.”
Greenbridge was not a pharmacy.
May you like
It was the name of one of the largest hospice networks in Minnesota.
And Mercer Family Pharmacy supplied medication to fourteen of its facilities.
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