Page 41 of Liberating Lily

A phone started ringing, and Harvey cursed as he looked at it. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back. Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she told him. “Go take it.”

“Michaela, stay with her,” he ordered.

"Sorry he’s so bossy," she said to Michaela as he left the room.

Michaela just smiled. “He pays me well, and he’s not a bad guy. He cares about you a lot.”

“You do know he kidnapped me, right?” she said. Shoot, should she have said that? Would he get angry at her for telling Michaela?

“Oh, I know,” Michaela said. “Like I said, he pays me well, and that includes my discretion. And I’ve seen the way Harvey looks after you. He spent every moment of the last couple of days in this room, except for when he had to use the bathroom or was heating up some soup for you. There aren’t many people that would take care of someone the way he’s looked after you.”

She was right.

Lily couldn’t think of anyone else in her life who would’ve looked after her like Harvey had.

And she didn’t know quite what to think of that. He’d taken her from her house.

If she’d gotten this ill at her mother’s house, she’d have been left on her own to rot.

Well, maybe James might have bought her some things, but he wouldn’t have been able to do too much without her mother catching on.

“He wouldn’t even let me put in an IV line or take blood from you without your permission, because you got so upset last time when we did it. I don’t mind a man like that bossing me around.”

Harvey returned after that, but Michaela had given her a lot to think about.

Harvey glanced over as the bedroom door opened and Michaela stood there.

“Is she asleep?”

He nodded, and she gestured for him to come out into the hallway. He kept the door open and positioned himself so he could see Lily as he spoke to Michaela.

“What is it? Did you get the results from her tests?”

“Not from the blood sample I took, but from the drugs we were testing that she’d been taking.”

He straightened. “What about them?”

“Well, the main base was the sedative that was written on the front of the pill bottle,” she told him. “But they were also laced with something.”

“What?” he asked.

“Have you ever heard of scopolamine?”

Scopolamine? Otherwise known as Devil’s Breath. “Fuck, you’re kidding. Those pills were laced with Devil’s Breath?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Those motherfuckers,” he snarled.

“Yeah, I don’t know how long she’s been on them, but it explains why she’s malnourished. She would have had very little appetite. Given in higher doses, scopolamine can cause amnesia and make someone highly suggestible.”

“I’ve got Paddy looking into the doctor. He must have known, right?”

Michaela nodded. “Unless someone switched the pills without his knowledge. Which is possible. Do you know who would have done that? Who would want her compliant and zombielike?”

“My guess is her bitch of a mother.” He’d need to have a chat with her mother and the doctor. Maybe Rick too.