The Wrong Name on the Bottle
Chapter 02 - The Wrong Name on the Bottle
At St. Catherine’s Hospital, doctors stabilized the elderly woman, Eleanor Whitmore, but could not explain why a routine heart medication had caused a dangerous reaction. Adrian paced outside the emergency room while two company attorneys questioned Lena as if she were a suspect.
They accused her of following Eleanor, stealing her medicine, and staging the collapse to force a meeting with Adrian. Lena refused to leave until the police collected the pills from the sidewalk.
“You think everyone is part of a conspiracy,” Adrian said.
“I think your mother told me those weren’t her pills.”
His expression changed, but only for a moment.
A nurse returned Eleanor’s purse. Inside was a prescription bottle labeled with her name, the correct dosage, and a pharmacy seal. Yet the tablets inside did not match the description on the label. Lena photographed the bottle before one of the attorneys could take it.
Eleanor woke briefly and asked to speak to Lena alone.
She explained that she had founded Whitmore Medical with her late husband to make essential medication affordable. In recent months, she had discovered that the company’s charity program was being used to move counterfeit drugs through free clinics. Whenever she asked questions, Adrian’s chief financial officer, Victor Sloane, claimed the irregularities were accounting errors.
That morning, Eleanor had planned to meet a federal investigator. She had carried proof in a small memory card hidden inside her pearl brooch. Now the brooch was gone.
Lena remembered seeing it when Eleanor fell. It had disappeared before the ambulance arrived.
Adrian entered and heard only the final sentence. “What proof?”
Eleanor studied her son with sadness. “Proof that someone inside our company has been using your authority.”
Adrian denied knowing anything about counterfeit medicine. The signatures Lena had found were digital approvals generated while he was traveling overseas. Someone had access to his credentials.
Before Eleanor could name her suspect, the heart monitor sounded. Nurses rushed in, and Lena was pushed into the hall.
A security officer approached with a sealed evidence bag. The remaining pills had tested positive for a powerful sedative that was never prescribed to Eleanor.
Then he held out Lena’s brown interview folder.
“The brooch was found inside this,” he said.
Adrian’s face hardened.
Lena looked at the folder she had carried all morning. The clasp was open, though she was certain she had locked it.
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Someone had planted the evidence on her while she was trying to save Eleanor.
And the hospital security cameras showed Victor Sloane arriving downstairs.
