Chapter 2 - THE TABLET IN THE TIN
Chloe did not call Dominic that night.
She sat on the kitchen floor until dawn, staring at the photograph of her mother. Margaret had been fifty-eight when she died, still young enough to dance at weddings and complain about the neighbors' television. By the end, she had needed help standing.
Chloe remembered the white tablets.
They had been in a small metal tin beside the kitchen sink. Her mother had insisted they were vitamins, then panicked when Chloe tried to throw them away.
“Promise me you won't take these,” Margaret had whispered.
“Mom, what are they?”
“Something I should never have brought home.”
The next morning, the tin was gone.
Chloe had assumed her mother misplaced it.
At eight, she called the number on Dominic's card.
He answered immediately. “Chloe?”
“I want to know why you recognized my mother's name.”
“Come to my office. I'll show you what I can.”
“I won't go to a place full of armed men.”
A pause.
“Then I'll come to you. Public place. Your choice.”
They met at a busy coffee shop near the hospital where Margaret had been treated. Dominic arrived without his usual security detail, though Chloe noticed a dark sedan across the street.
He placed a folder on the table.
“Your mother worked in accounts payable,” he said. “She flagged irregular payments to a medical supplier called Northstar Clinical. The invoices were approved by my chief financial officer, Victor Sloane.”
“Did she report it?”
“She sent a written complaint. It disappeared.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
Dominic opened the folder. The first page showed a payment schedule. The second showed Margaret's name beside a handwritten note: ACCESS REVOKED.
Chloe felt cold. “What does that mean?”
“She was removed from the accounting system three weeks after raising concerns. She resigned a month later.”
“She didn't resign. She told me she was laid off.”
Dominic's jaw tightened. “Then someone lied.”
He showed her another page. It listed a series of payments to a private medical clinic. Several were made under the same supplier code as the suspicious invoices.
“Northstar sold experimental compounds to private clinics,” Dominic explained. “Some were legitimate. Some may not have been.”
“You think they gave my mother something?”
“I think we need records before we make accusations.”
Chloe pushed the folder away. “You said someone tried to kill you. Now you're telling me my mother might have been harmed by the same people.”
“I am telling you there may be a connection.”
“Why would anyone target an accountant?”
“Because she found something.”
Chloe looked at the street beyond the window. A man in a gray cap had stopped beside the newspaper stand. He wasn't reading anything. He was watching the coffee shop.
Dominic followed her gaze.
“Don't turn around,” he said.
Her pulse jumped. “Who is he?”
“I don't know.”
Dominic took out his phone and typed a short message. A moment later, the man in the gray cap walked away.
“Are you being followed?” Chloe whispered.
“Possibly. So are you.”
“I didn't ask for this.”
“I know.”
Dominic closed the folder. “I can arrange protection.”
“I don't want to live behind locked gates.”
“Then we'll arrange something less intrusive. A driver. A check on your apartment. No one enters your home without permission.”
Chloe hated that she was considering it.
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed. An unknown number had sent a photograph.
It showed her apartment door.
The image had been taken from the hallway, less than an hour earlier.
Beneath it was a message:
STOP DIGGING INTO YOUR MOTHER'S MEDICINE.
Chloe's fingers went numb.
Dominic read it over her shoulder. His face became frighteningly still.
“Now,” he said, “you have a choice. You can walk away and let me handle this, or you can help me find out who is threatening you.”
Chloe looked at the photograph again.
Then she thought of Margaret, frightened and weak, asking her to throw away the tablets.
“I want the truth,” she said.
May you like
Dominic nodded once.
“Then we start with the clinic.”
