Chapter 3 - The Secret in the Vials
At St. Jude’s Critical Care Pavilion, the entire fifth floor was locked down under armed federal guard.
Claire sat upright in the hospital bed, her color slowly returning as the saline flushed the synthetic toxins from her bloodstream. Noah sat in the bedside chair, his crimson jacket draped over the back of the seat, holding a steaming cup of tea.
"How did you find me in time, Noah?" Claire asked softly, her fingers gently tracing the calluses on his hand.
Noah looked down at his shoes. "Three days ago, I noticed an inventory discrepancy in the Class-A biohazard vault at the downtown facility. Six ampoules of Somnodine-7 were missing, along with two digital monitors. When I checked the security timestamps, Daniel’s biometric pass had been used at three in the morning."
He swallowed hard, remembering the sheer panic that had gripped him. "I went to your estate. The gates were locked, and the guards told me you had passed away in your sleep. When I broke into Daniel’s study that night, I found the fast-tracked burial permit. He had arranged a closed-casket service within seventy-two hours, refusing an open viewing under the pretense of 'respecting your final wishes.'"
"He needed me legally dead before the annual board meeting on Friday," Claire explained, her voice cold with resolve. "Our father’s will stated that sixty percent of the voting shares in Sterling Pharmaceutical would default to me on my twenty-eighth birthday. If I died without direct heirs, the entirety of the estate and the intellectual property for our new cancer therapies transferred to Daniel."
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The door opened, and Detective Kane walked in with an encrypted laptop.
"Miss Sterling," Kane said. "The federal marshals just completed the search of your brother’s residence. We found something that changes the scope of this entire investigation."
