Chapter 3: Counting What Should Be There
I waited until Ellie's breathing evened out.
She'd gone down for her nap on the couch in the living room, pink dress smoothed over her knees, that drawing face-down on the coffee table where I'd left it. I didn't want her to see what I was about to do. I carried the orange bottle into the kitchen like it was heavier than it should have been.
The cap was still off. The little white cap sat next to it on the dark table, then in my palm as I moved. The house was quiet except for the refrigerator hum and the faint tick of the baseboard heat. Victor had gone to his office down the hall and closed the door. The cameras were still offline. I could see the red light blinking on the hallway panel.
I set the bottle down on the kitchen counter under the bright can light and washed my hands. Dried them twice.
My refills came from Hensley's Pharmacy on Main. Thirty-day supply, thirty tablets. Filled on the 24th. I took one every morning at eight with water. That meant today, the 2nd, I should have taken nine pills. Nine taken, twenty-one left. Or twenty-two if I counted the day of the fill wrong. I always second-guessed the math when I was anxious, so I pulled out my phone and checked the bottle label photo I'd taken when I first got it.
HENSLEY'S PHARMACY - Fill Date: 10/24 - Qty: 30 - Take one tablet daily.
I did the count on my fingers against the counter edge. The 25th was day one. So by the morning of the 2nd, I'd taken nine. Twenty-one should have been left.
I unscrewed the white cap and tipped the bottle. I didn't pour them out on the counter. I got a clean white dinner plate from the cabinet and laid a paper towel on it, then tipped the pills out gently, one at a time.
They clattered softly. Small, pale yellow, oval. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four.
I stared at them.
Twenty-four.
That was three too many. Or two, depending on how you counted, but either way it was wrong. It should have been fewer, not more. If someone had taken pills, there would be less. This was more.
I leaned in closer under the light. My pulse was starting to thump against my shirt collar.
At first they all looked the same. Then I saw it. Two of them, near the edge of the plate, were a shade off. Whiter. Not pale yellow but almost cream. And the imprint was different. My regular tablets had a shallow line scored on one side and the letters H-12. These two had a deeper stamp, H-13, and the edges were sharper, like they'd been pressed harder.
I didn't touch them. I held my breath and reached for my phone.
I took a photo of the bottle on its side next to the white cap, label facing up. Then the plate from directly above with all twenty-four spread out. Then I zoomed in on the two off pills next to a regular one for comparison. I made sure the time stamp was on in the camera settings. 1:47 PM. I took a short video too, just panning slowly across the plate so you could see the color difference in the light.
My hand wasn't steady.
I counted again, using the tip of a clean butter knife to separate them into groups of five so I wouldn't have to touch them. Twenty-four. The same.
Six.
Ellie's drawing had six bottles. I'd been thinking it was just a kid repeating a shape she saw. But we kept refills in the pantry. Hensley's gave me a ninety-day authorization, three months at a time. I had the current bottle on the counter and five refills still sealed in their orange bottles, stacked on the second shelf behind the cereal where I kept them. Six total if you counted the one I was using.
I walked to the pantry and opened the door.
They were there, lined up exactly like she'd drawn them. Six orange rectangles, white caps all facing the same way. Light from the kitchen fell across them and made them glow a little. She must have seen Victor standing there, studying them. The pantry door was right next to where the camera in the kitchen would have seen him. The same camera that had conveniently failed at 8:12.
He hadn't taken. He'd added.
I closed the pantry quietly and went back to the plate.
The idea that came next made my throat go dry. If I confronted him right now he'd have an answer ready. Pharmacy error, he'd say. Or, you miscounted. And without proof, I'd look paranoid, the guy with the heart condition getting worked up. He wanted that. He wanted me to seem unfit.
I wasn't going to give him that.
I found a clean zip bag in the drawer, the kind with the actual seal, and with the butter knife I slid the two off-color pills into it without touching them with my fingers. Then I slid the rest back into the original orange bottle and twisted the cap tight. I put the bagged pills and the bottle together into a larger bag, sealed it, and wrote on the outside with a Sharpie: 11/2 - 1:47pm - 24 total - 2 different - Hensley's 10/24.
I took one more photo of the sealed bag on the counter.
My phone said 1:52. Ellie would be asleep for another hour at least.
I needed someone who wasn't in Victor's circle to tell me what those two pills actually were. Not the ER where he knew the administrator, not our usual doctor who played golf with him. I thought of Alvarez's lab two towns over on Route 17, the place that did the county's independent tox screens. A guy I'd known since high school.
May you like
I would drive there in the morning after I dropped Ellie at preschool. No call ahead on the house phone. No mention to Victor.
I left everything sealed and put it high in the cabinet where Ellie couldn't reach, and stood there with my hands flat on the counter, listening to her breathe in the other room.
