The Second Attempt
Chapter 06 - The Second Attempt
The intensive-care corridor was crowded with nurses responding to an equipment alarm.
Dr. Pierce wore a white coat and carried a medication tray. No one questioned him at first. He had directed the pharmacy for eleven years and knew every restricted hallway.
He entered Audrey’s room while Elias and Ortiz were still in the basement.
Margaret sat beside the bed.
Pierce told her Audrey’s blood pressure had changed and he needed to administer a stabilizing drug. Margaret noticed that his hands were gloved before he touched anything.
She asked what medication he was giving.
He ignored her.
When he lifted the syringe, Margaret stepped between him and the IV line.
“You need to leave.”
Pierce’s voice hardened. “Move.”
Margaret reached for the call button.
He grabbed her wrist.
The door opened behind him.
Nurse Tessa Rowe had returned after noticing the medication order did not appear in Audrey’s chart. She saw Pierce restraining Margaret and pressed the emergency alarm.
Pierce shoved the tray toward her and ran.
Security intercepted him at the stairwell. Inside his pocket they found a second syringe containing potassium chloride—enough to stop Audrey’s heart and make the death resemble a complication of trauma.
Mason heard the commotion and attempted to leave through the family waiting area.
Ortiz stopped him at the elevator.
He claimed Pierce had acted alone. He said their meetings concerned hospital contracts and the recordings on Audrey’s drive were manipulated.
Then Ortiz showed him the vial from locker B-17.
Its batch number matched an inventory shipment signed out by Pierce. Access logs showed Mason entered the pharmacy storage area the same evening.
Mason requested an attorney.
He was not yet arrested for the crash because police were still reconstructing the road scene, but Ortiz informed him he could not approach Audrey or Margaret.
Mason smiled.
“You cannot keep me from my wife.”
Margaret answered before Ortiz could.
“She is not your wife.”
Mason’s eyes shifted.
The civil certificate had never been filed. Audrey had removed her signature before the clerk received it.
For the first time, he understood the inheritance plan had already failed.
May you like
But failure did not make him less dangerous.
It made him desperate.
