Chapter 11 - THE SECOND DRUG
Marcus got Elena out through the maintenance hatch at 3:40 a.m.
He had help.
Detective Renee Cole.
The same detective Victoria had tried to convince at the estate.
Cole drove while Elena sat curled beneath a blanket in the back seat.
Marcus held her hand.
“What did the lab find?”
Cole answered.
“The vitamin compound, yes. But also a second chemical.”
“What chemical?”
“Scopolamine derivative.”
Elena stared.
“What does that do?”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“Confusion. Memory disruption. Suggestibility.”
Elena felt the air leave her lungs.
Her missing memories.
Her uncertain conversations.
Her inability to trust what she had seen.
Cole glanced at her in the mirror.
“Combined with the experimental compound, it could make you extremely vulnerable to planted sensory cues.”
“The speakers.”
“Yes.”
“The red dress.”
Marcus looked at her.
“What about it?”
Elena remembered the dining room.
Victoria’s dress.
Then the empty dress on the chair.
“She was training my brain.”
Cole frowned.
Elena spoke faster.
“Every time I had tea, Victoria wore that red dress.”
Marcus stared.
“She wore it constantly.”
“No. Not constantly. At dinner. When she gave me the evening supplements. During stressful conversations.”
Cole understood.
“A visual trigger.”
“Exactly.”
Victoria didn’t need to be in the room.
Elena’s drugged brain supplied her.
The dress.
The perfume.
The voice recordings.
A manufactured ghost.
Marcus squeezed her hand.
“We can prove all of it.”
Cole shook her head.
“Some of it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Victoria’s lawyers are already claiming the lab samples were contaminated.”
Marcus cursed.
“And Dr. Avery?”
“Missing.”
Elena looked up.
“Missing?”
“He left the hospital forty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“We’re trying to find him.”
Marcus’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Dr. Avery’s voice came through.
“Marcus, don’t hang up.”
“Where are you?”
“I need protection.”
“You drugged my wife.”
“I followed orders.”
“From my mother?”
“Yes.”
Marcus went silent.
Avery sounded like he was crying.
“She said the doses were safe.”
Elena leaned toward the phone.
“You watched me fall apart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You signed papers calling me insane.”
“I know.”
“You almost let them take my baby.”
“I know.”
“Then fix it.”
Avery breathed hard.
“I have the original trial files.”
Cole turned sharply.
“Where?”
Avery gave an address.
An abandoned Asterion research building outside the city.
“I’ll meet you there.”
Cole said, “No. Stay where you are.”
“I can’t.”
“Doctor—”
A loud bang exploded through the phone.
Avery gasped.
Then a second bang.
The line went dead.
Marcus stared at the phone.
Cole slammed the accelerator.
Elena looked out the back window.
A black SUV was following them.
May you like
And it was getting closer.
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