Chapter 2 - The Locked DrawerNicholas did not ask Iris to share his bed.
Instead, he opened the door to the sitting room adjoining his bedroom and showed her the long velvet sofa.
“You can sleep here.”
“I thought the entire point was that you didn’t want to be alone.”
“The door stays open.”
Iris folded her arms.
“You have a forty-thousand-square-foot house, and apparently you’re still worried about propriety?”
Nicholas looked briefly offended.
“It’s twenty-seven thousand.”
She stared at him.
“You corrected the square footage?”
“Accuracy matters.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
The exchange felt almost normal.
That frightened her.
Nothing about this night was normal.
Iris went downstairs for blankets. When she returned, Nicholas was sitting at the edge of his bed holding a photograph.
He placed it face down immediately.
Iris pretended not to notice.
Again.
See everything.
Say nothing.
It had been the operating principle of her entire adult life.
At 12:10, Nicholas changed into a dark T-shirt and loose pants and climbed beneath the covers.
Iris sat on the sofa reading a novel she had brought from downstairs.
She had not turned a page in twenty minutes.
Nicholas noticed.
“You’re holding it upside down.”
She looked.
He was right.
“I’m testing you.”
“Of course.”
His eyes closed.
For several minutes there was only the soft hum of the air-conditioning.
Then Nicholas spoke.
“Iris?”
“Yes?”
“Talk.”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
She considered.
“When I was thirteen, I lived with a foster family that had six chickens.”
Nicholas opened one eye.
“That is what you selected?”
“You said anything.”
“Continue.”
“There was one chicken called Margaret who hated everyone.”
“Reasonable.”
“She escaped every Thursday.”
“Why Thursday?”
“We never figured it out.”
Nicholas’s mouth curved.
“So every Thursday I had to chase Margaret around three acres before school.”
“This explains a great deal about you.”
“What exactly?”
“Your tolerance for difficult personalities.”
Iris smiled despite herself.
She told him about Margaret.
Then about the foster mother who taught her to bake bread.
Then about the public library where she spent entire Saturdays because it was warm, quiet and no one asked her when she planned to leave.
Nicholas rarely interrupted.
Eventually his breathing deepened.
Iris stopped talking.
She watched him sleep.
Without the permanent tension around his mouth, he looked peaceful.
She found herself remembering the first day she met him.
She had been twenty-two, broke and recently fired from a hotel housekeeping job because she refused to cover another employee’s missing cash.
The Valmont household agency sent her for what was supposed to be a two-week temporary assignment.
Nicholas had interviewed her for exactly four minutes.
“Do you steal?”
“No.”
“Do you gossip?”
“No.”
“Do you care who visits me?”
“No.”
The last answer had become increasingly difficult to maintain.
He hired her that afternoon.
Five years later, Iris knew how he liked his coffee, how he hated roses because they reminded him of funerals, how he never sat with his back toward a door and how he sometimes stood in the kitchen long after midnight simply because she was there.
But she had never known he was afraid of sleeping alone.
At 1:22, Nicholas jerked awake.
His breath came sharply.
Iris was beside him before she realized she had moved.
“Nicholas?”
He grabbed her arm.
His eyes were unfocused.
“Mother?”
The word was barely audible.
Iris’s heart cracked.
“It’s Iris.”
His focus returned.
He released her immediately.
“Sorry.”
“You were dreaming.”
“I don’t dream.”
“That was a very convincing impression.”
He pushed himself upright.
Sweat darkened his shirt.
Iris reached for water.
As she handed him the glass, something on the bedside table caught her eye.
A bottle.
Different from the medication she had brought earlier.
This one had no pharmacy label.
Only Nicholas’s initials printed on a small white sticker.
“What’s that?”
His gaze followed hers.
“Supplements.”
“From the hospital?”
“My private physician.”
“Dr. Mercer?”
Nicholas looked surprised.
“You know his name?”
“He calls.”
Nicholas picked up the bottle.
Something subtle changed in his expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s your lying face.”
“I don’t have a lying face.”
“You absolutely do.”
He turned the bottle between his fingers.
“I was told to take two every night.”
“Have you?”
“For three months.”
Iris frowned.
“Is that when you started getting worse?”
Nicholas stopped moving.
Silence.
The question remained between them.
“How long have you been having symptoms?”
“About four months.”
“And these?”
“Three.”
“Did your hospital specialist prescribe them?”
“No.”
“Did they know you were taking them?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
Nicholas’s tone cooled.
“Iris.”
“No. You asked me to stay. That means tonight I am apparently the person making sure you wake up, so I’m allowed to be annoying.”
His eyes held hers.
Then he looked back at the bottle.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t take them tonight.”
“They’re supposed to stabilize my heart rhythm.”
“Then call the hospital and confirm.”
“It’s after one.”
“I imagine wealthy dying billionaires receive after-hours service.”
Nicholas gave her a look.
She handed him his phone.
“Call.”
Perhaps because he was exhausted, perhaps because he trusted her, he did.
The hospital cardiology desk transferred him twice.
Finally a physician answered.
Nicholas put the call on speaker.
“Mr. Valmont?”
“Dr. Hale?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
Nicholas explained the bottle.
There was a pause.
“What supplements?”
Nicholas repeated the information.
Another pause.
Longer.
“Do not take them.”
Iris and Nicholas looked at each other.
Dr. Hale’s voice sharpened.
“Who prescribed those?”
“My personal physician.”
“Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Bring the bottle to the hospital tomorrow.”
Nicholas sat straighter.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to speculate over the phone.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“Mr. Valmont, I’m asking you not to take another dose until we test the contents.”
Nicholas’s expression became frighteningly still.
“Are you suggesting they may have caused cardiac damage?”
“I’m saying we need to test them.”
Nicholas disconnected.
Neither spoke.
Iris looked at the bottle.
“You thought you were dying from a disease.”
“I am.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Multiple scans show extensive damage.”
“That doesn’t mean you know what caused it.”
Nicholas stood.
He crossed toward his office.
“Where are you going?”
“I need something.”
He opened a locked drawer.
Inside were folders, a passport, two encrypted drives and a stack of medical records.
Iris remained at the doorway.
Nicholas removed one folder.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
His face had changed.
“Something’s missing.”
“What?”
“A report.”
He searched again.
“What report?”
“The original toxicology panel from four months ago.”
Iris felt cold.
“Who knows the combination?”
“No one.”
“Cleaning staff?”
“You are the cleaning staff on this floor.”
She stared at him.
Nicholas checked the drawer for signs of damage.
Nothing.
“Could you have moved it?”
“No.”
“Evelyn?”
“She has never opened this drawer.”
Iris’s thoughts began connecting details she wished would remain separate.
Dr. Mercer.
Unmarked medication.
A missing laboratory report.
Nicholas’s rapid decline.
“Who benefits if you die?”
The question sounded terrible as soon as she asked it.
Nicholas did not seem offended.
He sat at his desk.
“Financially?”
“Yes.”
“Approximately forty people.”
Iris exhaled.
“Comforting.”
“My father’s trust distributes minority holdings among extended family. My uncle Conrad becomes interim chairman if I die without a designated successor.”
“Would he control the company?”
“Temporarily.”
“How temporarily?”
Nicholas leaned back.
“With the right board votes? Permanently.”
Iris remembered meeting Conrad Valmont twice.
Elegant.
Silver-haired.
Charming in the way snakes probably appeared charming to mice immediately before becoming dinner.
“You think your uncle is poisoning you?”
“No.”
“That sounded very definite.”
“Conrad wants power. He does not commit murder.”
“How do you know?”
Nicholas looked toward the medicine bottle.
“I thought I did.”
At 2:16, Iris received a notification on the mansion security panel.
Movement detected.
Ground floor.
She looked at Nicholas.
“Is anyone else supposed to be here?”
“No.”
The security system showed a service corridor.
Empty.
Then one camera flickered.
The image vanished.
Nicholas was already standing.
“Lock the bedroom door.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“Iris.”
“Six to twelve weeks, remember? You’re not chasing intruders through your own house.”
He ignored her.
They went downstairs together.
The house felt different now.
Every shadow looked occupied.
Every silence sounded intentional.
Nicholas retrieved a small flashlight from a drawer.
The service corridor appeared empty.
Iris noticed the pantry door.
Open.
She had closed it.
She was certain.
Nicholas stepped forward.
On the floor beside the service entrance lay a single white envelope.
His name was written across it.
NICHOLAS.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Iris saw his expression change before she saw the image.
A woman stood beside a lake.
Young.
Beautiful.
Dark-haired.
Holding a little boy’s hand.
Nicholas and his mother.
Across the photograph, written in red ink, were five words.
SHE TRUSTED THE WRONG DOCTOR TOO.
Iris’s blood went cold.
Nicholas looked at her.
For the first time that night, the billionaire did not look afraid of dying.
May you like
He looked afraid that his mother’s death had never been natural.
And that whoever knew the truth had just entered his house.
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