Chapter 12 - THE HALF-TRUTH IN ROOM 614
The plan lasted forty-one minutes before Dorian ruined it.
He collapsed in the breakfast room.
One second he was arguing with Theo about coffee.
The next, his knees hit the floor.
Ivy reached him first.
"Dorian!"
His skin was cold.
His pulse raced beneath her fingers.
Dr. Reed examined him and immediately ordered an ambulance.
"He has a toxin in his system."
Ivy's blood froze.
"From the kidnapping?"
"Possibly."
Ronan looked toward Declan.
"Seal whatever he ate or drank."
Theo began shaking.
"I made the coffee."
Ivy grabbed his face gently.
"This is not your fault."
"I gave it to him."
"And you drank from the same pot."
Theo nodded.
"Then it wasn't the coffee."
Dr. Reed checked Dorian's pupils.
"Hospital now."
Room 614 at St. Vincent Medical Center was placed under private security.
Ivy hated that they had returned to the same hospital system connected to Halcyon, but Dr. Reed insisted its toxicology unit was the fastest in the city.
Dorian regained consciousness after noon.
His first words were,
"I hate hospitals."
Ivy nearly cried from relief.
"You have terrible timing."
"Family tradition."
Theo laughed shakily.
Ronan stood near the door.
Dorian saw him and stopped smiling.
"I need to talk to Ivy alone."
Ronan nodded.
"Fine."
"And Theo."
Theo stayed.
Ronan left with Dr. Reed.
The door closed.
Dorian looked at Ivy.
"I lied about one thing."
Ivy almost screamed.
"Can everyone stop saying that today?"
"I didn't tell you everything they did while they held me."
Her anger vanished.
"What did they do?"
Dorian looked at Theo.
"You should probably go get water."
Theo folded his arms.
"I'm seventeen, not seven."
"Go get water."
Something in Dorian's face made him obey.
When Theo left, Ivy sat beside the bed.
"Tell me."
Dorian stared at the blanket.
"They gave me injections."
Ivy's chest tightened.
"What kind?"
"I don't know."
"How many?"
"Two."
"Why?"
"They said one would make me confused."
He swallowed.
"The other was insurance."
Ivy felt sick.
"Insurance against what?"
"Against me talking after they let me go."
She stood abruptly.
"I'm getting the doctor."
Dorian caught her hand.
"Wait."
"No."
"Ivy, wait."
His grip was weak.
She stopped.
"They asked me questions while I was drugged."
"About the photographs?"
"At first."
"Then what?"
"About Mom."
Ivy stared.
"What could you tell them?"
"Nothing useful."
Dorian looked ashamed.
"So they told me things instead."
"What things?"
"That Mom met Ronan after Eleanor died."
Ivy froze.
"That's impossible."
"That's what I said."
Dorian swallowed.
"They showed me a photograph."
"Of what?"
"Ronan talking to a woman outside a bus station."
Ivy's skin prickled.
"When?"
"The day after Eleanor's plane crash."
"Mom was already dead."
"Exactly."
Dorian looked at her.
"Unless the timestamp was false."
Ivy sat down slowly.
"Or the woman wasn't Mom."
"Maybe."
"Did you see her face?"
"Not clearly."
"Then why tell me?"
Dorian's voice lowered.
"Because Ronan was holding something."
"What?"
"Mom's red scarf."
Ivy stopped breathing.
Celeste had owned one red scarf.
Cheap wool.
She wore it every winter.
After the crash, the scarf had never been found among her belongings.
"You're sure?"
"I remember it."
Ivy looked toward the door.
Ronan had said he never knew Celeste's name.
If he had met someone carrying her scarf after Celeste's death, that could still be true.
But it meant he knew more than he had admitted.
Again.
Theo returned.
Ivy forced herself calm.
"Stay with Dorian."
She stepped into the hallway.
Ronan stood near the nurses' station.
She walked straight to him.
"The red scarf."
His face changed instantly.
That was enough.
Ivy almost slapped him.
"You knew."
"Not what you think."
"Stop deciding what I think."
People in the hallway turned.
Ronan lowered his voice.
"Come with me."
"No."
"Ivy."
"Say it here."
His eyes hardened.
"The day after my mother died, a woman approached me at the Greyhound terminal."
Ivy's heart pounded.
"Who?"
"She called herself Mara."
"Was it my mother?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"I saw Celeste's photograph tonight."
Ronan's voice softened.
"It wasn't her."
"Then why did she have the scarf?"
"She said a woman had given it to her with instructions to find me if Eleanor died."
Ivy stared.
"What instructions?"
Ronan reached into his wallet.
He removed a tiny folded piece of paper, worn nearly soft from years of handling.
"I've carried this for nine years."
Ivy took it.
The handwriting was Celeste's.
RONAN,
YOUR MOTHER TRUSTED YOU MORE THAN SHE TRUSTED YOUR FATHER.
IF SHE IS DEAD, DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING GIDEON PUTS IN FRONT OF YOU.
DO NOT GO TO HALCYON.
AND DO NOT LET HIM FIND THE SECOND LEDGER.
Ivy looked up.
"You had this."
"Yes."
"For nine years."
"Yes."
"And you signed the dissolution documents four years ago anyway."
Ronan's face tightened.
"I had forgotten the name Halcyon."
Ivy laughed in disbelief.
"You carried the note."
"I carried it because it was connected to my mother."
"But you didn't remember the one word she warned you about?"
Ronan's voice broke.
"I was twenty-two, Ivy."
He looked away.
"My mother had just died."
He breathed once.
"My father told me she had been paranoid for months."
Another breath.
"He told me strangers were trying to exploit me."
Ivy saw the memory hurting him.
"I believed him."
"And Mara?"
"She disappeared before I could ask more."
"Did you look for her?"
"For two weeks."
"Then?"
"Gideon sent me overseas."
Ivy closed her eyes.
Another half-truth.
Ronan had not known Celeste.
But he had received her warning.
He had not known what Halcyon was.
But he had been told to fear the name.
He had not killed her mother.
But he had participated in the machinery that protected the men who did.
The distinction mattered legally.
Emotionally, Ivy did not know what it meant.
A nurse hurried toward them.
"Miss Lancaster?"
Ivy turned.
"Your brother is having another reaction."
They ran into Room 614.
Dorian was conscious but trembling violently.
Dr. Reed examined the IV line.
Then he looked toward the medication pump.
His face changed.
"This isn't from the earlier toxin."
Ivy's blood froze.
"What?"
Dr. Reed held up the IV bag.
"Someone added something to this."
Ronan turned toward the doorway.
The Blackwood guard stationed outside was gone.
On the floor near the nurses' station lay his radio.
A woman in scrubs disappeared through the stairwell door.
Ivy ran after her.
Ronan followed.
They reached the stairs just as the woman removed her surgical mask.
Vivienne Hale looked back at them.
Then she smiled.
May you like
"You should have taken the deal."
She pushed through the fire exit and vanished into the parking structure.
