Chapter 1 - The Prescription
The digital clock on the bedside table read 2:14 a.m. The house was silent except for the low hum of the medical ventilator keeping Raymond’s lungs functioning. I sat in the high-backed leather armchair, the glow of my phone screen casting a pale blue light across my face. I had searched Dr. Samuel Wallace’s name three more times, cross-referencing the label from the white box with pharmaceutical databases and medical journals.
The drug was called Pancuronium bromide, a powerful neuromuscular blocker. In a clinical setting, it was used during surgeries alongside heavy anesthesia to paralyze skeletal muscles. Administered to a patient without a respirator or proper ventilation monitoring, it would suffocate them slowly, leaving their mind fully alert behind an immobile mask of flesh.
My breath caught in my throat. Wallace wasn't treating Raymond. He was maintaining a slow execution.
A soft rustle from the bed made my head snap up. Raymond’s eyes were open again, fixed on the ceiling, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. I hurried to his side, dipping a sponge into the cup of ice water on the tray and moistening his dry lips.
“Mr. Raymond,” I whispered, leaning in close. “Can you hear me?”
A single blink. Yes.
“Is Wallace doing this on purpose?”
Two blinks. No.
I frowned, confused. If Wallace wasn't acting alone, who was giving the orders? I held my breath, feeling the crushing weight of the question. “Is someone else telling him to give you that medicine?”
One blink. Yes.
“Who? Christopher?”
Raymond’s eyes shifted frantically toward the bedroom door, then back to me. He blinked twice.
Not Christopher.
The revelation struck me like a physical blow. For the past two weeks, Christopher Winslow had strutted through these halls like a king in waiting, treating his uncle’s impending death as an administrative inconvenience. I had assumed, as anyone in this sprawling, paranoid mansion would, that Christopher was the sole architect of the betrayal. But if Christopher wasn't the one orchestrating the poisoning, he was either a pawn or a distraction.
And if it wasn't Christopher, who else had access to the master wing, the private physicians, and the family accounts?
The answer bloomed in my mind with terrifying clarity: Elena Winslow. Christopher’s mother, Raymond’s older sister, and the quiet, immaculately dressed matriarch who spent her afternoons drinking tea in the conservatory and managing the household staff with a chilling, velvet-gloved precision.
I looked down at Raymond. His eyes held a pleading, desperate plea that broke my heart. He had built an empire on loyalty and fear, and now he was being dismantled from the inside by his own blood, kept prisoner in his own skull while his family divided the spoils.
“What do you want me to do?” I whispered.
Raymond’s gaze drifted toward the heavy mahogany wardrobe against the far wall. The bottom right panel.
May you like
Before I could ask for clarification, a faint click echoed down the hallway. Not the heavy, confident footsteps of Christopher, but the soft, deliberate tread of rubber-soled slippers.
Someone was coming down the corridor. At two in the morning.
