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She nods once. Her gaze flicks to Kira, then back to me. “It’s no trouble at all.”
I gesture for Dr. Morgan to sit down in the chair, and while she makes herself comfortable, I sit down beside Kira again. My hand finds hers on the couch cushion, and I lace our fingers together. Usually, she curls hers around mine without thinking.
Today, they just lie there between my fingers, cold and limp.
Donna appears from the kitchen with a tray of drinks and a plate of oatmeal cookies. While she pours coffee for myself and Dr. Morgan, she keeps glancing at Kira. I know she’s worried, but right now I just want her to leave.
As soon as she’s gone, I turn to Dr. Morgan. “Say what you came to say.” My voice comes out flatter than I intend. It’s not rude per se, just stripped of patience.
Dr. Morgan sets her coffee down and opens her briefcase. She pulls out a folder thick with papers, some hospital-branded, others bearing the NovaGen Pharmaceuticals logo I’ve come to fucking despise.
“I want to walk you through this step by step,” she says. Her voice is measured. Careful. The voice of a woman who’s delivered bad news enough times to know that dropping it all at once is the quickest way to make sure none of it lands.
She lays the first document on the coffee table.
“These weren’t simply authorizations for unusual medication,” Dr. Morgan continues. She adds another document. Then another. Each one bearing Harry’s signature, each one more specific than the last. “Your dad repeatedly consented on your mom’s behalf to experimental drug trials run through NovaGen Pharmaceuticals. Including a drug called PermaDol, which was in phase two testing when these authorizations were signed.”
My hand tightens around Kira’s before I catch myself and ease my grip. The hatred I’ve carried for Harry Adams since he was in my office crystallizes into something colder. Something that sits behind my sternum like a shard of ice.
But Kira doesn’t squeeze my hand back. Doesn’t flinch when I tighten my hold or seem to notice when I loosen it again. That scares me more than anything Dr. Morgan has said so far.
My phone vibrates against my thigh. Once. Twice. Then again. I know it’s Paolo or Gio calling with an update. But they’ll have to wait until Dr. Morgan leaves. Even though I’m waiting for them to have completed their jobs, I refuse to leave Kira alone right now.
Dr. Morgan lays out the treatment records next. Dates. Medication changes. Dosage increases that correspond with the experimental protocols. She shows us how Paige’s seizures worsened after certain drug introductions.
How her responsiveness dropped. How, in the final weeks, her cardiovascular system began showing signs of strain that the regular hospital staff attributed to the underlying brain injury.
“Some of these records were kept separate from her ordinary hospital chart,” Dr. Morgan explains. Her fingers tap a column of numbers. “That’s why the full pattern was difficult to see until I reconstructed it from both sets.”
She pauses to look at Kira, but when she doesn’t react, Dr. Morgan looks at me and quirks an eyebrow. I nod for her to continue.
“There’s something else,” she continues.
My jaw tightens. “What?”
“I don’t believe the separation of these records was accidental. There are too many inconsistencies in what was documented in Paige’s ordinary chart compared to the NovaGen records.”
For the first time, Kira’s fingers twitch inside mine.
“You think they hid it from her?” I ask.
Dr. Morgan looks at Kira. “I think there were people involved who knew more than they let on.”
That tracks with what I found out about the nurse who answered to NovaGen instead of the hospital. I should have tortured the bitch for more information.
“So, are you saying NovaGen killed Paige?” I ask bluntly.
“I need to be careful about causation since I can’t truthfully say that one specific drug killed your mom, Kira. What I can say is that the experimental treatment placed additional strain on an already severely injured brain.”
“How much?”
Dr. Morgan looks at me.
“You said it placed additional strain. So, how much strain? How much worse did it make her?”
“The seizures became more frequent and more severe. The cardiovascular instability that preceded her death was consistent with the side effect profile of several drugs in the trial.”
“So this wasn’t just a possibility buried in a list of side effects.”
