6. Quentin
Each stride of my dress shoes against the tile floor echoed like a thunder strike in contrast to the quiet hospital hallways.
Only periodic beeps and the whir of oxygen machines punctuated the silence as I walked toward Simon’s room in the intermediate care unit.
His house manager’s call to the office rang through my ears, forming a haunting symphony with my shoes.
Simon’s in the hospital, Iris had said. We thought it was a stomach bug like the one Jude got, but after a couple days... She’d had to take a breath to ease the shaking in her voice. He’s been poisoned... Thallium, they think. We’re not sure how he’ll respond to treatment...Please get here soon...
The call should have gone to Bryce first since he and Simon were so close.
But even in the throes of his illness, he hadn’t wanted to interrupt Bryce’s honeymoon turned paternity leave.
Jude was gone on a business trip, Cruz was at a marketing conference, Aaric was visiting family in Norway like he did every year at this time, and here I was.
Eventually I reached the right nurses’ station separating the waiting area from the intermediate care unit. A step below ICU, but still too serious for regular care. A nurse in dark-gray scrubs looked up at me with bags under his brown eyes and asked, “Can I help you?”
“Simon Stone,” I said.
“Your name?”
“Quentin Thomas.”
The guy looked at a list and tapped a pen to it. “ID?”
Reaching into my pocket I got my license to show him. Satisfied, he said, “Twelve twenty-two. Third door on the left.”
I turned to follow his directions only to freeze. Iris was in the hallway, in handcuffs. A police officer stood on either side of her, grim expressions on their faces while Iris hissed, “I didn’t do it! I would never hurt him!”
“Ma’am, this is protocol. We have to—”
“Excuse me,” I cut in. “What exactly is going on here?”
The officers exchanged a look, and the man on the left, Officer Dempke, according to his badge, said, “We’re bringing her into the station for questioning.”
“Under what grounds?” I demanded.
“This is an active investigation,” Dempke snapped, like it should have been obvious. Maybe it was, but I didn’t like his fucking tone.
“Well, you’re wasting your time with Iris,” I told them. “The woman’s been working with Simon for years. If she wanted to poison him, she would have before now.”
Dempke said, “She can say all of that in her statement.”
“Not without an attorney present,” I argued. Then I looked at Iris. Her dark eyes were tight with worry. “Do you have a lawyer?” I whispered to her, even though the police were standing practically on top of us.
She almost imperceptibly shook her head.
“Her attorney will be meeting her at the station,” I said to Dempke, since he was clearly the voice box of the two. “His name’s Walter Markham,” I told them as much as her. “He’s an excellent procedural lawyer and has won cases on police malpractice,” I warned.
The cops narrowed their eyes at me. But I wasn’t scared of them. “See you soon, Iris,” I told her.
As soon as they were out of earshot, I stood outside the door to Simon’s room, dialing my personal attorney. We had a host of them at MyHome I could have used, but I trusted Walter with my life. He answered quickly, got as many details as I had, and promised he’d be at the police station promptly.
Once we hung up, I glanced back at the door to Simon’s hospital room. The doorway felt like purgatory. Here, I wasn’t sure what I would find, but as soon as I walked through, there would be no going back.
I pushed into the room anyway. A younger man in dark-gray scrubs sat in a chair by the entrance, scrolling his phone.
He guiltily stuffed it away at the sight of me.
But my gaze slid over to Simon. His skin looked almost gray amongst the pure-white blankets draped over his body, leaving only his arms, shoulders, and head exposed.
The only proof of life was the steady beat of his heart rate across the monitor.
I could hardly see the rise and fall of his chest.
Wires and tubes protruded from his hands, chest, and nostrils, delivering various liquids and gases to his system, taking measurements far more difficult to read than a simple heartbeat.
On his back, Simon almost looked like a wax statue that was once a science project but had been left in the sun, skin melting back toward the bed while medicine kept him in stasis.
My stomach turned at the thought.
I focused on the small movement of his chest to steady myself and then realized the guy in scrubs was still in here, and he was watching me.
“What’s your role here?” I demanded to know.
“I’m... a CNA. When foul play is suspected, hospital policy is to have someone in the room with the patient at all times to prevent another attack.”
It was a small comfort that no one would be able to just walk in and finish the job they started. “Where’s the doctor?”
“Making rounds. Should be here in an hour or two.”
I wanted answers now, but Bryce was still on his way. Surely he’d want to hear it all for himself as well. So I sat in the chair beside Simon’s bed, hands in my lap. “Have his children been notified?” I asked the CNA.
The kid ran a hand through his scruffy facial hair. “His emergency contact was—” his face screwed up in concentration, and then he gave up—“that woman the police took. She called several people. I don’t know who.”
I wished Iris were here to tell me because the presence of his children would wildly change the landscape of this hospital room. And yet, they deserved to know about their father... didn’t they?
My mind went back to Daybreak Dominion’s attack on Simon at the gala. Could Jasper’s cult be behind the poisoning as well? Worry made my stomach sink. If they were at fault, they’d escalated quickly from painful messages to deadly actions.
I sent Walter a text message.
Quentin: Tell the police to look into Jasper and Simon’s other kids. They have reason to want Simon gone.
Walter: Yes. They’ll want you in for questioning as well eventually.
My jaw clenched in frustration. The last time I’d had access to Simon was at the wedding four days ago.
The doctors didn’t think he was poisoned then, did they?
Who all had been there? Just close friends and family.
But then as I went through the evening in my mind, I remembered there had been catering staff in attendance. A bartender too.
I sent a new message to my assistant.
Quentin: Get the list of every person at Bryce’s wedding, including staff, and send it to Walter.
Within seconds, I had a response.
Daniel: On it.
As I put my phone in my pocket, Bryce rushed in, chest rising and falling. His gaze scanned Simon quickly before tracking back to me. “Q, they brought Iris to the police station. What if she’s been framed for it?” Worry was wild in his eyes.
“My lawyer’s on his way to meet her at the police station,” I told him. “Daniel’s getting a list of everyone who was at the wedding to give to the police as well.”
Bryce’s skin turned sallow. “They think it happened at the wedding?” He looked to the CNA for confirmation, but I waved my hand.
“He’s making sure no one attacks Simon again. The doctor should be here in an hour or so.”
Bryce’s face had a look of wild determination as he went to the call button on the wall above the bed. When the nurse answered, Bryce said, “We need to see a doctor as soon as possible.”
The answer came back, “I’ll page her to let her know Simon’s family is here.”
Bryce and I shared a heavy look, and Bryce finally said, “Thank you.”
He pulled up a free plastic chair and positioned it on the opposite side of Simon’s bed from me.
Speaking quietly, he said, “Hang in there, Simon. We’re here for you.
We’re going to figure out who did this. When you wake up, we’ll have security on you twenty-four seven.
You won’t be hurt like this again. I promise. ”
Simon’s heart rate beeped in the same steady rhythm, even as Bryce took his hand and held on to it.
Bryce always knew the most caring thing to say in each moment. Meanwhile, my mind ran rampant with words, yet none of them seemed more valuable than the silence. The clock ticked past fifty minutes while Bryce told Simon about his little girl and what a whirlwind it had been to see Jada give birth.
“I’ve never been so amazed by someone,” Bryce said, eyes shining. “I have you to thank for that, in some strange way, for all of your crazy demands...”
I was about to remind Bryce we had an audience, even though the CNA was doing his best impression of a bump on a log, but then a doctor came into the room, scrubbing hand sanitizer over her olive-toned hands. The CNA didn’t even move, despite Bryce and I both rising to greet the woman.
After we introduced ourselves, I said, “Get us up to speed.”
She nodded, a determined look furrowing her thick black eyebrows. “Our tests reveal thallium poisoning. Are you familiar?”
Both Bryce and I shook our heads.
“It used to be used in pesticides,” she explained, “but it’s been outlawed since the seventies. We’re not sure how much he ingested, but the treatment is the same regardless of the dose.”
“There’s a treatment?” I asked, feeling my shoulders drop with relief. Simon’s body wasn’t exactly strong to begin with, and asking it to fight poison couldn’t end well.
The doctor nodded. “It’s a medicine called Prussian blue. This is an oversimplification, but it will collect the poison from his system, and then he’ll excrete it.”
Bryce pressed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. He had to be running on almost no sleep, and I asked, “Will he be okay?”
“Okay?” She tilted her head, eyeing the sleeping man.
“He’ll likely have neuropathy in his hands and feet.
The numbness and tingling may go away. It may not.
He may have tremors for the rest of his life.
In time, he’ll have skin lesions, hair loss, lines in his nail beds.
It could affect his mind as well, expediting mental decline.
Our main concern now is his heart. Both the poison and treatment are hard on it, and with end-stage chronic heart failure...
” She shook her head as if to say, It doesn’t look good. “He may be okay.”
“May be?” Bryce echoed.
“We administered our first dose of Prussian blue this morning. He’ll get three doses a day until toxicology reports are within normal levels. I’d like to see how he responds to early treatment before offering a prognosis.”
I nodded, taking it all in. “How long will he be here? Ballpark?”
She looked at Simon again. “A week at least, possibly a month? It really depends.”
For a moment, I forgot how mad I was at Simon for forcing our hands in marriage and felt pity instead. He was meant to be in designer suits, pacing in front of a whiteboard in the conference room like he forgot he was no longer a college professor. Not rotting in a hospital bed in a flimsy gown.
“Do you have any other questions?” the doctor asked.
“I don’t,” Bryce said, then looked at me.
“How soon will we know if the medicine is helping or hurting?”
“We’ll be monitoring daily for the first week,” she said. “I’ll have a solid idea in the next several days.”
“Until then?” I asked.
“We’ll keep him as comfortable as possible. He was pretty dehydrated...” She talked for a while about their plan to replace his fluids and electrolytes, but it all started to become overwhelming. Finally, she said, “I’ll be back again this evening to check his progress.”
After she left, Bryce and I sat back down on opposite sides of Simon. Bryce sent a voice message of the news to Cruz, Aaric, and Jude, and then we were quiet. The information weighed heavy on our shoulders.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before the sound of shifting sheets drew my attention back to Simon.
His eyes slowly blinked open, pale eyelashes fluttering. It seemed like Bryce and I were both holding our breath to see how he would act.
“Water,” he rasped.
Bryce hurriedly reached for the plastic tumbler on the fake-wood nightstand while I used a button to adjust Simon’s bed, elevating his shoulders.
Simon took a sip from the drink and then coughed. Finally, he said, “Don’t think this means you’re getting out of a wedding, Quentin.”
I looked at Bryce to see if he heard the same thing I had. Bryce pressed his lips together as he held back a laugh.
I groaned. “I can’t tell if you’re a crazy old man or a hopeless romantic.”
Simon gave me a tired smirk. “I’m surprised you don’t already know; the two go hand in hand.”