Chapter 6 - The Poison in the IV
Midnight settled over Northwestern Memorial Hospital like a suffocating shroud. Outside, a torrential rainstorm battered the glass, lightning illuminating the darkened city skyline in erratic, violent flashes.
Julian had been forced to leave an hour earlier; an emergency board meeting had been called by the Montgomery Holdings executive committee regarding the public relations disaster of the rooftop incident and an alleged audit discrepancy. Clara knew Victoria had engineered the late-night summons to isolate her.
Clara lay awake in the dim room, her body trembling with every rumble of thunder. Two private security guards stood outside her door, but whose payroll were they on? Julian’s? Or Victoria’s?
The handle of the door clicked.
Clara gasped, pulling the blanket to her chin. A figure in nurse scrubs, wearing a surgical mask and paper cap, pushed a small medication cart into the room.
"It’s time for your potassium and magnesium infusion, Mrs. Montgomery," the nurse said, her voice muffled behind the mask.
Clara watched her closely. The nurse’s hands were steady, but she moved with an unnatural stiffness. As she approached the IV pole, the sleeve of her scrubs pulled back slightly, revealing a flash of an emerald-and-diamond serpent bracelet around her wrist.
Clara’s heart stopped.
"Victoria," Clara choked out.
The woman paused. Slowly, deliberately, Victoria pulled down the surgical mask. Her face was devoid of all humanity, her eyes hollow, dead voids.
"You really should have died in that pool, Clara," Victoria whispered, her voice barely louder than the hum of the cardiac monitor. "It would have been so clean. A tragic, heartbreaking accident. Julian would have grieved for a year, inherited the estate, and let me run the empire in peace. But you... you are stubborn. You and that wretched thing inside you."
Victoria reached into the cart and pulled out a large syringe filled with a clear, colorless liquid.
"Potassium chloride," Victoria murmured, tapping the barrel with a manicured fingernail. "Undetectable in standard post-mortem screens if administered in the right dose. It mimics a sudden, massive cardiac arrest caused by pulmonary embolism—a very common complication after near-drowning and orthopedic trauma. Julian will hold my hand at your funeral. And no one will ever know."
Clara tried to reach for the emergency call button, but Victoria lunged forward, her hand clamping down over Clara’s mouth like an iron vise, pinning her head to the mattress.
"Shh," Victoria whispered viciously, her face inches from Clara’s. "Fight it, and the needle will just hurt more."
Clara writhed beneath her, the cast on her leg preventing any leverage. She flailed her free arm, knocking over a tray of metal instruments. They crashed to the linoleum with a deafening clatter, but the thunder outside swallowed the sound. Victoria uncapped the needle and drove it toward Clara’s IV line port.
Suddenly, the bathroom door behind Victoria swung open with explosive force.
Maya Lin charged out of the shadows, wielding a heavy chrome IV stand like a battering ram. She struck Victoria across the shoulders, sending the older woman crashing into the bedside table. The syringe flew from Victoria’s grip, shattering against the wall, its lethal contents pooling on the floor.
"Get away from her, you psycho!" Maya snarled, stepping between Victoria and the bed, brandishing the heavy steel pole.
Victoria scrambled to her feet, spitting blood from her split lip, her wig askew. She glared at Maya with absolute madness. "You! How did you get in here?!"
"I never left," Maya breathed heavily. "I knew what you were the second I looked into your eyes at that pool. I hid in the staff locker room and slipped into Clara’s bathroom two hours ago."
The commotion finally alerted the guards outside. The heavy door burst open, and two burly security men rushed in, guns drawn. "Hands in the air! What’s going on here?!"
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Victoria instantly shifted posture, clutching her bruised arm, her voice rising in a shriek of feigned victimhood. "Help me! This woman sneaked into the room and attacked me! Arrest her! Arrest her now!"
***
