Chapter 2
Adrian watched him.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been saying nothing works. Changing the routine might.”
A reasonable answer.
Delivered too quickly.
Dominic sat opposite him.
“We have the Marlowe contract at one. I moved it here so you wouldn’t have to go downtown.”
“You moved my meeting?”
“You told me last week to make things easier.”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Not triumph.
Concern.
That was what made everything so difficult.
“You did,” he said quietly.
Adrian looked down at the portfolio.
“Do I sign anything today?”
“Two renewals.”
“Leave them.”
Dominic frowned.
“They’re time-sensitive.”
“Then I’ll read quickly.”
“Adrian—”
“I said leave them.”
Silence filled the study.
A year ago, Dominic would have backed away immediately.
Today he remained in his chair.
“You’ve asked me to handle more,” he said. “Then every few weeks you become angry because I handled it.”
“That must be frustrating.”
Dominic stared at him.
The old Adrian would have sharpened the sentence.
The rested Adrian simply waited.
Eventually Dominic exhaled.
“It is.”
“I’ll read the renewals.”
“Fine.”
He stood.
At the door, Adrian spoke.
“Dominic.”
His brother stopped.
“When did you start bringing my evening tea?”
Dominic turned.
There it was again.
Not fear exactly.
More like calculation.
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“A few years ago.”
“Why?”
Dominic laughed softly.
“Because you were barely sleeping.”
“And tea was the solution?”
“Mrs. Ricci said chamomile helped.”
“Mrs. Ricci could have brought it.”
Dominic’s smile disappeared.
“Where is this coming from?”
Adrian let the silence stretch.
Then he closed the folder.
“I slept seven hours last night.”
Dominic’s face went still.
“I’m glad.”
“So am I.”
Neither brother moved.
Finally Dominic nodded once.
“I’ll see you at lunch.”
When the door closed, Adrian looked at his own hands.
They were not trembling.
The preliminary laboratory report came shortly after four.
Marco returned through the service entrance carrying no papers.
He did not need them.
“There was something in the tea,” he said.
Adrian stood near the bookshelves.
“What?”
“A stimulant compound. Not something naturally occurring at that concentration.”
The room seemed to contract.
“Could it explain the insomnia?”
“It could contribute to it significantly. Tremors. Agitation. Trouble concentrating.”
Adrian sat.
For a few seconds neither man spoke.
Three years.
Three years of specialists, tests, scans, sleep clinics, breathing exercises, medications, diet changes.
He remembered one neurologist asking him whether he consumed caffeine late in the day.
Adrian had almost laughed.
One coffee before breakfast.
Nothing afterward.
Or so he had believed.
“Can they tell how much?”
“Not from one cup in a way that tells us what you consumed every night.”
“Could it have been accidental?”
Marco’s silence answered.
Adrian looked toward the garden.
Dominic and he had learned to ride bicycles on these grounds.
Their mother used to sit beneath the sycamore tree with a book she rarely read because she spent most of her time watching them.
Dominic had broken his wrist at eight when he tried to jump over a stone bench.
Adrian had carried him half a mile back to the house because Dominic refused to cry where anyone could see.
That memory came suddenly, painfully.
A small boy clinging to his neck.
I knew you’d come back for me.
Adrian pressed his fingers to his eyes.
“What now?” Marco asked.
“I talk to him.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Adrian looked at him.
“Marco.”
“I’m not suggesting anything dramatic. I’m asking whether you want a witness.”
“No.”
Marco accepted that.
“Then at least tell me afterward.”
Adrian nodded.
He expected Marco to leave.
Instead, his old friend remained beside the desk.
“There’s something else.”
Adrian looked up.
“The lab checked the cup itself. There are traces of the compound, but not enough to explain three years of symptoms from one night alone.”
“That isn’t something else.”
“No. This is.”
Marco placed a small plastic bag on the desk.
Inside was a folded receipt.
“I found it in the trash near Dominic’s office after you called me.”
Adrian did not touch it.
“What is it?”
“A pharmacy receipt. Not for the compound.”
“Then why does it matter?”
“The name.”
Adrian looked closer.
The receipt was nearly two years old, the print faded along its folds.
At the top was a clinic he recognized.
Dr. Samuel Vale.
His first sleep specialist.
Adrian looked at Marco.
“Dominic saw Vale?”
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
“That,” Marco said, “is what I think you need to ask before you decide you understand the whole story.”
At dinner, Adrian did something he had not done in months.
He joined everyone.
Not the staff meal in the kitchen.
His family.
Dominic.
Their aunt Elena, who lived in the east wing and complained loudly whenever anyone suggested she move somewhere smaller.
Sarah and Lily had returned from the library, though they ate earlier downstairs.
The dining room seemed absurdly large for three adults.
Elena Moretti watched both brothers over her wineglass.
“You two are being strange.”
Dominic cut into his salmon.
“We’re always strange.”
“No. Usually you hide it better.”
Adrian almost laughed.
Their aunt pointed her fork at him.
“And you look rested.”
“I slept.”
Elena froze.
Then her face softened.
“Oh.”
One syllable.
More feeling than Adrian expected.
“How long?”
“Seven hours.”
“My God.”
Dominic looked down at his plate.
Elena reached across the table and squeezed Adrian’s wrist.
“You haven’t slept that long since…”
She stopped.
Since the funeral.
Their mother had died three years and four months earlier.
Adrian had forgotten the timing.
Or perhaps he had chosen not to notice it.
Dominic’s tea ritual had begun soon afterward.
Elena withdrew her hand.
“Maybe this means things are changing.”
Adrian looked across the table at his brother.
“Yes,” he said.
“I think they are.”
Later, when Elena had gone upstairs, Adrian found Dominic in the library.
His brother stood beside the windows, loosening his tie.
“We need to talk,” Adrian said.
Dominic gave a humorless smile.
“I was wondering how long you’d wait.”
That stopped Adrian.
“You know?”
“I know you’ve been watching me all day.”
Adrian closed the door.
“Did you put something in my tea?”
Dominic did not answer.
The silence was enough.
Adrian felt disappointment arrive differently than anger.
Quieter.
Heavier.
“Why?”
Dominic looked toward the darkened garden.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
For a long time, Dominic said nothing.
Then he sat in their mother’s old reading chair.
May you like
“I started because I wanted you to slow down.”
Adrian stared at him.
