Chapter 4 - The Interrogation of the House
Within five minutes, the master bedroom was converted into a lockdown zone.
Dominic Costa did not call the police. He did not call an ambulance. He posted four armed men outside the heavy oak doors, four more at the foot of the grand staircase, and had the remaining guards secure every exit from the estate.
The twelve specialists were instructed to sit on the silk-upholstered chairs along the west wall of the bedroom. They were stripped of their phones, their laptops, and their briefcases. The men who thirty minutes ago had been discussing million-dollar consulting fees were now sitting with their hands on their knees, pale, silent, and terrified.
Dominic stood near the center of the room, holding the iodine-stained glass ampoule in a silk handkerchief.
He walked slowly over to Maya, who was standing quietly near the window, her scrubbing brush still resting in the bucket of dirty water at her feet.
Dominic was a tall man, smelling expensive tobacco, leather, and old cologne. He looked down at Maya with eyes that had ordered dozens of men into concrete foundations along the river.
“What is your name, girl?” Dominic asked, his voice deceptively soft.
“Maya,” she answered, her voice firm, her eyes looking straight into his. “Maya Lin.”
“Maya,” Dominic repeated, turning the glass ampoule between his fingers. “You’re a cleaner. You scrub floors. You earn eighteen dollars an hour.”
“Yes.”
“Explain to me how a girl who scrubs floors knows that potassium chloride produces peaked T-waves on a cardiac monitor,” Dominic said, stepping three inches closer, his shadow falling completely over her. “Because from where I am standing, the only people in this house who should know that are the twelve geniuses sitting over there who failed to see it.”
Dr. Thorne spoke up from the wall. “Dominic, she saved his life! If she hadn't recognized the rhythm, we would have administered epinephrine and killed him!”
“Quiet,” Dominic snapped without looking back. His eyes never left Maya’s face. “Answer me, Maya. Where did you learn about hyperkalemia?”
“My brother,” Maya said, her chin lifted slightly. “Leo. He was born with renal dysplasia and a heart murmur. He spent three years at County General before he died when I was nineteen. I spent every night in his room. I read his charts. I talked to his nurses. When you spend three years watching a monitor, you learn what the lines mean.”
Dominic regarded her for several long seconds. He looked down at her hands—reddened, calloused, with short, unpolished nails. Then he looked at her eyes. There was no deceit in them, no nervous shift, no glance toward the door.
Dominic turned around slowly, facing the twelve doctors.
“One of you put that glass in the bag,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into an icy register that made Dr. Reed shiver. “The secondary IV bag was hung at ten PM. Only people with medical access could have reached that pole without my guards stopping them.”
“That’s absurd!” Dr. Vance spat, standing up from his chair, his hands clenched into fists. “We are board-certified specialists! We were brought here to save Vincent, not murder him! Why would any of us risk our careers, our freedom, to poison a man we don't even know?!”
“Because someone paid you,” Dominic said simply. “Or someone threatened you. My nephew has many enemies in this city. Three days ago, someone put a bomb under his car. Tonight, someone realized the bomb didn't finish the job.”
Dominic nodded to Frank. “Take the doctors down to the library. Lock the door. Search their bags, search their coats, search their hotel reservations. Nobody leaves this house until I know who brought that vial into my nephew’s room.”
The guards moved in immediately, grabbing the twelve specialists by their arms and ushering them out through the heavy double doors. Dr. Reed attempted to protest, but a quick elbow from a guard into his ribs silenced him instantly.
Within two minutes, the room was empty except for Dominic, two guards by the door, Maya, and the man on the bed.
Dominic walked over to Vincent’s bedside, looking down at his nephew.
Vincent’s eyes were open now. He wasn't fully conscious, but the heavy, drug-induced stupor had lifted. His chest rose and fell in a strong, steady rhythm. The monitor showed a solid, healthy heart rate of seventy-four beats per minute.
Dominic looked over his shoulder at Maya.
“You’re not going down to the library, Maya,” Dominic said softly.
Maya’s hand tightened around the handle of her bucket. “Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Dominic said, a cold, unreadable smile touching his grey mustache. “You’re the only person in this house who proved she wasn't trying to kill my nephew. Starting right now, you don't scrub baseboards.”
Dominic gestured toward the stainless-steel pole holding the clean saline bag that Dr. Thorne had just hung.
“You sit in that chair,” Dominic commanded, pointing to a high-backed leather armchair beside the bed. “You watch that screen. You watch every bag, every tube, every drop of fluid that goes into his body. If anyone—doctor, nurse, or guard—touches that bed without your permission, you tell me.”
Maya looked at the leather chair, then at the man in the bed.
May you like
Vincent’s dark eyes were fixed on her face. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod of his head against the pillow.
Maya set her scrub brush down into the bucket, took off her yellow rubber gloves, and walked across the room. She sat down in the heavy leather armchair, her eyes fixing squarely on the green line pulsing steadily across the screen.
