Chapter 5 - THE NAME HE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SAY
-5
“Rebecca?”
The name left Nicholas’s mouth like something dragged up from the bottom of a lake.
Hannah stopped with the glass of water halfway to his lips.
It was 2:14 in the morning.
The Valenti mansion was silent except for the wind pressing against the windows and the distant mechanical hum of the security system.
Nicholas was sweating through his gray T-shirt.
His pupils looked wrong.
Too wide.
His hands trembled against the blanket.
“Who is Rebecca?” Hannah asked.
Nicholas blinked.
For a second, he seemed to return to himself.
Then confusion moved across his face.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.”
He looked toward the bedroom door.
“Close it.”
Hannah did.
Then Nicholas lowered his voice.
“My sister.”
Hannah waited.
“She’s dead.”
“How long ago?”
“Seven years.”
“What happened?”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened.
“That depends on who you ask.”
Before Hannah could question him further, footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Claire.
Hannah recognized the precise rhythm of her heels.
Even after midnight, Claire never seemed to walk through the house without announcing herself through expensive shoes.
The bedroom door opened.
She wore a silk robe.
“What’s happening?”
“Nicholas woke confused,” Hannah said.
Claire immediately moved toward the medication table.
“Again?”
Hannah noticed the word.
Again.
She hadn’t told Claire this had happened before.
Nicholas looked at Hannah.
Then at Claire.
Something silent passed through his eyes.
Claire touched his forehead.
“My poor darling.”
Nicholas flinched.
Small.
Almost invisible.
But Hannah saw it.
Claire turned toward her.
“He needs the nighttime medication.”
“I already gave the prescribed dose.”
Claire frowned.
“No. The additional one Dr. Whitmore approved.”
“There’s no additional dose documented.”
Claire’s smile cooled.
“My father is his specialist.”
“Then he can enter the order.”
“Hannah.”
“I can’t administer an undocumented medication.”
Claire stared at her for several seconds.
Then she smiled again.
“Of course.”
She left.
Nicholas whispered:
“Don’t let her give me anything.”
Hannah’s skin prickled.
“Why?”
But his eyes had already closed.
By morning, he remembered almost nothing.
That frightened Hannah more than the confusion.
She began checking every medication bottle against the electronic physician orders.
Most matched.
Two did not.
One bottle contained tablets with markings inconsistent with the label.
Another had a pharmacy label that looked slightly misaligned.
That was when Hannah started keeping samples.
She did not accuse anyone.
She did not remove enough medication to alter the schedule.
She simply documented.
Photographs.
Dates.
Tablet markings.
Symptoms.
Timing.
She also began charting Nicholas’s episodes.
They usually occurred after Claire personally brought him tea, supplements, or medication.
Not every time.
But often enough to matter.
Three days later, Hannah found Walter Bell in the library.
“Who was Rebecca Valenti?”
Walter went still.
He had been reading a financial report.
He lowered it slowly.
“Why?”
“Nicholas said her name during an episode.”
Walter looked toward the doorway.
Then closed the book.
“Rebecca was his younger sister.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died.”
“I know that.”
Walter’s face hardened.
“You’re a nurse.”
“Yes.”
“Then focus on nursing.”
Hannah should have left.
Instead, she said, “I think someone is altering his medication.”
Walter’s eyes changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
That was worse.
“You have evidence?”
“Not enough.”
“Then you have suspicion.”
“I have inconsistent tablets, undocumented dosing attempts, recurring confusion, and symptoms that do not match his known diagnoses.”
Walter stood.
“Hannah, listen carefully.”
“I am.”
“If you are wrong, you could destroy people.”
“And if I’m right?”
He looked toward the windows.
“Then people have already been destroyed.”
That answer stayed with her.
That afternoon, Ethan visited.
Nicholas had reluctantly agreed that Hannah’s brother could spend Saturdays at the estate because the agency’s live-in arrangement had become difficult for childcare.
Ethan was eight, skinny, endlessly curious, and completely unimpressed by wealth.
He entered the library, looked around, and said:
“This room smells like old pencils.”
Nicholas almost smiled.
“Those are books.”
“Same thing.”
Hannah whispered, “Ethan.”
“What?”
Nicholas actually laughed.
It was the first time Hannah had heard him laugh.
Ethan rolled his wheelchair closer without asking.
“What happened to your legs?”
Hannah froze.
“Ethan.”
Nicholas raised a hand.
“It’s fine.”
He looked at the boy.
“Car accident.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“My heart hurts sometimes.”
Nicholas studied him.
Hannah’s chest tightened.
Ethan continued.
“But Hannah says pain is information.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“Does she?”
“All the time.”
Hannah shrugged.
“It is.”
Ethan pulled a crooked paper crane from his pocket.
“For you.”
Nicholas stared at it.
“What is it?”
“A wish.”
“I don’t make wishes.”
“You don’t have to believe in them.”
Ethan placed the crane on Nicholas’s blanket.
“Magic probably doesn’t care.”
Nicholas looked at the bird for a long time.
Then he whispered:
“My sister used to make these.”
Hannah’s breath caught.
Walter, standing near the doorway, heard it too.
Later, after Ethan had fallen asleep in the guest room, Walter finally came to Hannah.
“Rebecca was seventeen when she started making paper cranes.”
“Why?”
“She spent six months in a hospital.”
“What was wrong with her?”
Walter’s jaw tightened.
“Nothing anyone could explain.”
Hannah stared at him.
“Symptoms?”
“Nausea. Weakness. Confusion. Tremors.”
Her stomach dropped.
“Hair loss?”
Walter looked at her sharply.
“Yes.”
“Neuropathy?”
“Yes.”
“Memory problems?”
“Yes.”
She whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Walter understood.
“You think Nicholas has the same thing?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“Rebecca died from an overdose.”
“Who told you?”
“Medical examiner.”
“Who treated her?”
Walter hesitated.
Then said the name Hannah already feared.
“Dr. Malcolm Whitmore.”
Claire’s father.
Hannah sat down.
Walter continued.
“Rebecca hated him.”
“Why?”
“She said he was making her worse.”
“Did anyone believe her?”
“Nicholas did.”
“What happened?”
“He confronted Whitmore.”
“And?”
“Rebecca disappeared from the hospital two days later.”
“Disappeared?”
“She was found dead in a hotel room.”
“Overdose?”
“Yes.”
“What drug?”
“Sedatives.”
“Did she have a history of misuse?”
“No.”
Hannah felt cold.
“And Nicholas?”
“He spent years believing he should have protected her.”
“Why would Claire marry the brother of a girl who accused her father?”
Walter looked at Hannah.
“That is a question I have asked myself for six years.”
That evening, Hannah searched Nicholas’s medical history.
His accident eight months earlier had been severe.
A black SUV had struck the passenger side of his sedan on a wet road.
His driver died.
Nicholas survived with spinal trauma.
The other vehicle was never conclusively identified.
Hannah stared at the timeline.
Three weeks before the crash, Nicholas and Claire had announced their engagement.
Two weeks before that, Nicholas had changed his estate plan.
She didn’t know that yet.
But Walter did.
The next morning, he came to her room holding a sealed envelope.
“I should have given this to someone years ago.”
Inside was a photocopy of a handwritten note.
Rebecca’s handwriting.
Nicholas,
If I start forgetting things, don't believe Dad's doctor.
He says the medicine is helping.
It isn't.
Claire knows.
Hannah read it twice.
“Claire?”
Walter nodded.
“Rebecca and Claire were friends.”
Hannah looked up.
“What?”
“Before Claire became Nicholas’s fiancée, before any of this, she and Rebecca were inseparable.”
The entire story shifted.
“Why has nobody mentioned that?”
“Because after Rebecca died, Claire told everyone they had fallen out months earlier.”
“Did they?”
Walter handed Hannah another page.
A photograph.
Rebecca and Claire stood together at a charity gala.
Both young.
Both smiling.
On the back, someone had written a date.
Three weeks before Rebecca died.
Hannah stared at Claire’s arm around Rebecca’s shoulders.
Then at Rebecca’s note.
Claire knows.
That night, Hannah returned to Nicholas’s room.
He was awake.
She placed the photograph in front of him.
His face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Walter.”
Nicholas looked furious.
“He had no right.”
“He had every right if someone is repeating what happened to Rebecca.”
Nicholas stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
Hannah pulled out the small evidence bag.
Two tablets.
“Your medication does not match the label.”
His eyes moved to the bag.
Then back to her.
“You think Claire is poisoning me.”
“I think somebody is.”
He laughed once.
Bitterly.
“You don’t understand Claire.”
“Then help me.”
Silence.
Finally Nicholas whispered:
“Rebecca called me the night she died.”
Hannah sat beside him.
“What did she say?”
His eyes filled with something she had never seen from him before.
Fear.
“She said she had proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That Claire’s father had been giving her something that wasn’t in her chart.”
Hannah’s pulse accelerated.
“What happened to the proof?”
“She said Claire had it.”
“Why Claire?”
“Because Rebecca trusted her.”
Hannah looked at the photograph again.
“And did Claire give it to you?”
“No.”
“What did she say?”
“That Rebecca was confused.”
Nicholas closed his eyes.
“I believed her.”
Hannah understood immediately.
“And then Rebecca died.”
“Yes.”
Silence filled the room.
Then Nicholas opened his eyes.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The night before my accident, I found Rebecca’s old phone.”
Hannah’s breathing stopped.
“Where?”
“In a locked drawer inside my father’s study.”
“What was on it?”
“One recording.”
Nicholas looked toward the door.
“Rebecca talking to Claire.”
“What did she say?”
“I only heard the first thirty seconds.”
“Why?”
“Because Claire walked in.”
Hannah felt her heartbeat in her throat.
“What happened to the phone?”
May you like
Nicholas looked directly at her.
“It disappeared after the crash.”
