Chapter 41: The First Treatment

 

Rhys looked at Marguerite as though she had spoken in another language.

“You just said I was the control.”

“You became the control,” she replied. “That wasn't how it began.”

Rain tapped against the pharmacy awning. Beyond the police barriers, firefighters rolled hoses across the pavement. Nobody seemed to notice that Rhys Calloway had stopped breathing properly.

“Explain,” he said.

Marguerite glanced at Brandt. “Not here.”

“You don't get to choose where.”

“Rhys,” Elara said quietly.

He turned toward her. She had not heard that voice from him before. It wasn't the voice of a billionaire giving orders. It belonged to a little boy discovering that every adult in the room had known something he hadn't.

Elara faced Marguerite. “Start with the first treatment. No theories. Tell us what you saw.”

Marguerite lowered her eyes.

“In 1998, your father brought you to Saint-Claire. You had headaches. Nothing unusual, but your grandfather was convinced the Calloway men carried an inherited condition.”

“My father told me I was healthy.”

“He believed you were. Augustin didn't.”

Brandt opened his notebook. “What treatment?”

“A preparation Vale called a sensory stabilizer. I never learned its ingredients. I signed for deliveries because Augustin didn't want the household staff asking questions.”

Rhys stared at her.

“You signed for them?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“Six months. Perhaps eight.”

“And when you realized?”

Marguerite's face tightened. “I didn't realize then. I thought the doctors were helping you.”

“Until Gabriel.”

Her silence confirmed it.

Elara remembered Lucille's handwriting on the observation sheet. A perfumer had noticed what trained physicians had supposedly missed. That was either extraordinary carelessness or something worse.

“Why switch the records?” Elara asked.

“Gabriel became ill,” Marguerite said. “The doctors wanted to compare his symptoms with Rhys's earlier examinations. By the time Lucille came, the files called Rhys the control subject.”

“Did he consent?” Brandt asked.

“He was a child.”

“I mean his parents.”

Marguerite looked directly at Rhys. “Your father argued with Augustin for weeks.”

“About what?”

“The treatments. He wanted them stopped.”

Rhys took one step backward. Elara reached for him, then let her hand fall. He needed space more than comfort.

A fire officer approached Brandt with a sealed evidence bag. Inside lay a blackened metal case.

“Found in the drainage channel. The laptop's destroyed, but this was wedged beneath the grate.”

Brandt examined it. “A portable drive?”

“Possibly. Our technician will assess it.”

Marguerite's expression changed.

Elara noticed immediately.

“You recognize it.”

“No.”

“You looked frightened.”

“I've spent twenty-five years frightened.”

“Then tell us what you're frightened of now.”

Marguerite said nothing.

Brandt handed the bag to an officer. “I'll need you at the station, Mrs. Calloway.”

Rhys finally spoke. “I'll come.”

“No,” Brandt replied. “You and Mrs. Quinn should return to the hospital. You were both present when Odette Marchand was shot. I may need further statements, but you're not helping by standing in the rain.”

Marguerite began to follow the officer. At the car door she stopped.

“Rhys.”

He didn't answer.

“Your father tried to protect you.”

Rhys looked at her.

“Then why didn't he tell me?”

Marguerite's gaze dropped to the wet pavement.

“Because he didn't survive long enough to finish.”

 

Back at the hospital, Elara found two untouched cups of coffee outside Odette's room.

Rhys stood at the window. He had refused a fresh shirt, and his cuff still bore a faint rust-colored stain from the bridge.

“Eight years old,” he said. “I was eight when I decided I never wanted to be frightened of anything again.”

Elara set down the coffee.

“You must have had a reason.”

“I fell asleep during a thunderstorm. When I woke, my father was gone. They told me he'd gone on business.” He rubbed his forehead. “He returned three days later with a bandage on his hand. I never asked why.”

Elara moved beside him.

“You were a child.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep trying to hold him responsible.”

He glanced at her, and the smallest hint of warmth crossed his face.

Her phone rang. Priya.

“The drive from the annex,” Priya said. “The police recovered a readable index. Most of the files are encrypted.”

“Did they find Gabriel?”

“Not yet. But one folder has a date and a name attached.”

“Whose?”

Priya hesitated.

“Lucille Quinn. She was listed as the person who requested the first treatment.”

Elara remembered Julian's forged contract. One signature had almost erased her life's work. Now another threatened everything she believed about her mother.

She stared through the glass at Odette's sleeping figure.

“No,” she whispered.

Priya's voice tightened.

“Elara, the request was filed three months before Rhys ever entered the clinic.”