“What was that?” I slid back across the leather seat and grabbed a bottle of apple juice from the bar.
“That’s the Valencourt estate.” Harrison gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “I don’t like to stick around. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“An accurate description.” I studied the high stone wall and barbed wire as we careened around the first corner. I visited Dorien’s home in New York City that one time, and it had been the usual decadent mansion of the elite. I’d pictured their country estate as rolling lawns and stables, not… whatever this was. “It looks more like a prison.”
“Mmmmm. Dorien’s parents haven’t been seen in public for ten years. There are all sorts of strange rumors about the place.”
I waited for Harrison to elaborate, but he didn’t. We drove into the city, and Harrison dropped me outside the hospital. It took me a bit to get my bearings and find the correct ward, but finally, I stood outside a room with a DE WINTER nameplate on the door.
“Hey, Mom. How’re things?” I slid into the chair beside her bed. No hard plastic here. The room was a bit like a 4-star hotel room if you squinted hard and ignored the hospital bed and the beeping machinery keeping my mother alive. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come last week. I missed you.”
I touched her hand, steeling myself against the warmth in her fingers. I always expected her to feel cold, lifeless, because of the way she looked. But that warmth gave me hope, and that hope kept me glued to her, paying the mounting hospital costs week after week.
Seven weeks she’d been in a coma. Her prognosis was slim because her kidneys were failing, and they didn’t even know what was wrong with her. But I couldn’t bear the thought of my vibrant, boisterous, forgetful mother gone from the world. And so I hung on, long after I should, but I couldn’t quench the flame of hope that burned inside me.
“Are you Mrs. Usher?”
I whirled around at the voice. A youngish doctor stood in the doorway, her mouth set in a line born of late nights and grim results. I burst out laughing.
“I haven’t been cast out from a gothic horror story, so nope, not me.”
“Sorry.” She glanced at the tablet in her hand, a strand of lank strawberry-blonde hair falling out of her bun and dangling over her face. “I have an Usher on file as admitting her, along with a man named Harrison. No one else has visited her since she arrived. I’m Doctor Henrietta Nelson, and I’m assuming you’re the daughter, Faye?”
“That’s me.”
“I was going to call Mrs. Usher at the end of my shift, but since you’re here now, I can tell you. We’ve had some test results back that have shed light on what happened. It appears your mother was poisoned.”
Chapter Nineteen
Faye
“Poisoned?”
Dr. Nelson nodded. “At this time, we can’t assume it was deliberate – that’s for the police to decide.”
“The police? Are you saying it’s…” I couldn’t force the wordmurderfrom my lips. That word didn’t belong in any sentence associated with my mother.
“There are two ways poison can cause damage in the body. One is by taking a large dose all at once. The other is when a patient ingests a small amount of a poison over a long period – each individual dose isn’t enough to do any harm, and in some cases isn’t even detectable on tests, but over time it builds up in the body until one day…” she looked down at my mother with concern.
“You think that’s what happened here?”
She nodded. “We call it chronic poisoning – it was a common way poisoners administered arsenic during the 19th century, but we don’t see it often in a modern hospital as people will usually go to their doctor with symptoms before it reaches this stage. This isn’t arsenic, though – it’s not something we’ve ever seen before, which is why your mother’s doctors couldn’t help her before now. I’ll know more once our lab identifies the poison, which they’re working on now as their top priority. The most likely culprit is some kind of unregulated supplement or non-traditional medicine. Was your mother eating or drinking anything outside of her usual diet, something those around her weren’t partaking of?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember. “She used to have these special herbal teas. Her assistant would order them in bulk and make one for her each morning. Mom said they helped her memory and cognitive skills, but they tasted so bitter and gross I never wanted to drink them.”
“Would you have access to any of these teas? If they’re the source, it would help us identify the poison.”
“I doubt it.” The teas had probably been thrown out when the office was cleared out by the liquidators. “But I can check.”
Poisoned.
Dr. Nelson must’ve seen the horror on my face, for she stepped into the room and placed her hand over mine. Her stoic features crumpled into something like a smile. “I know this is hard to hear, but it might be good news. If we can find the source of the poison, there may be a way to create an antidote. Some of your mother’s internal systems have been damaged, but the coma has halted the breakdown of her organs. I don’t want to get your hopes up until we know what we’re dealing with, but there is still hope to cling to here – more hope than most.”
I nodded. My fingers closed around my mother’s, squeezing as hard as I dared. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” She stepped back, rearranging her face back into her practical mask. “I’ll do everything I can for her. But Faye, you need to speak with the police and find out anything you can about this tea. If that’s the source of the poison, it needs to be pulled off the market immediately. We deal with a number of cases of health complications from people taking herbal remedies made with dangerous ingredients. Wellness is big business, but so many of those products are untested. If we could save other lives…”
My other hand curled into a fist. “Don’t worry – I’m not letting them get away with this.”
