Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE OF PERFECT LIES
Eleanor survived.
Barely.
At St. Vincent's Hospital, Mason stood outside the intensive care unit while Dr. Fallon explained that a sedative had been found in her blood.
Mason looked as though someone had hollowed him out.
Dorcas stood ten feet away.
“Could she have taken it accidentally?” Mason asked.
Fallon hesitated.
“It's possible.”
“But?”
“The dosage was significant.”
Mason closed his eyes.
Fallon placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You need rest.”
Dorcas hated that sentence.
Not because it was unreasonable.
Because Fallon said it like an instruction.
She walked toward them.
“What medication?”
Fallon sighed.
“Miss Reed.”
“What sedative?”
“This is private medical information.”
Eleanor's voice came weakly from behind them.
“Tell her.”
They turned.
A nurse had opened the ICU door.
Eleanor was awake.
Two hours later, Eleanor told Dorcas something that changed everything.
“I didn't take any pills.”
Mason sat beside her bed.
“Mother, you don't remember breakfast yesterday.”
“I remember last night.”
“Could you have—”
“No.”
Her voice strengthened.
“I drank tea. I read seventeen pages of a terrible mystery novel. Henry helped me upstairs. Nobody gave me medicine.”
Dorcas asked, “Did anyone visit?”
Eleanor looked at Fallon.
“My doctor.”
Silence.
Fallon smiled patiently.
“I checked your blood pressure at ten.”
“And gave me something?”
“Your prescribed evening medication.”
Dorcas watched Mason.
He had noticed it too.
“Which medication?” he asked.
Fallon named it.
Mason's face hardened.
“That isn't a sedative.”
“No.”
“So how did a sedative get into her blood?”
“I don't know.”
For the first time, Fallon sounded defensive.
That was enough.
Mason hired an independent toxicologist.
He told nobody except Dorcas.
For three days, they played their roles.
Mason became harsher.
More forgetful.
He deliberately misplaced documents.
He shouted at Henry where staff could hear.
Dorcas publicly argued with him.
Privately, they investigated.
The security blackouts had occurred seven times in two months.
Always late at night.
Always when Graham Pike was on duty.
But Pike had an alibi for several.
Someone was using his credentials.
Then Dorcas discovered something stranger.
The pantry inventory showed bottles of imported vanilla extract disappearing.
Not remarkable.
Except nobody in the kitchen used that brand.
She found one behind a locked cabinet.
The bottle did not smell like vanilla.
Mason sent it for testing.
The result arrived the next morning.
A prescription sedative dissolved in alcohol.
Enough to impair memory in small doses.
Enough to render someone unconscious in larger ones.
Mason sat at his desk reading the report.
“Someone has been drugging us.”
“Maybe.”
“Us?”
Dorcas pointed to the wording.
“The chemical can cause short-term memory gaps.”
Mason's face went pale.
Twenty-seven minutes.
The missing medication.
The moved mug.
“What about my father?”
Dorcas knew what he was thinking.
“If the same thing existed twenty years ago…”
He stood.
“My father wasn't losing his mind.”
“We don't know that.”
“I watched him deteriorate.”
“Mason.”
“He forgot meetings. Accused people. Lost hours.”
His breathing changed.
Dorcas moved closer.
“And then he died.”
Mason looked at her.
“I thought I was becoming him.”
Dorcas spoke gently.
“What happened the night he died?”
He did not answer for a long time.
Finally:
“I told him I hated him.”
Dorcas waited.
“He accused my mother of betraying him. I called him insane.”
Mason's eyes became distant.
“He grabbed my shirt. I pushed him away.”
His voice broke on the next words.
“I told him everyone would be better off if he disappeared.”
Dorcas said nothing.
“He drove away.”
“And crashed.”
“Yes.”
“You were twenty-one.”
“I still said it.”
“You didn't crash the car.”
“You don't know what happened afterward.”
“Neither do you.”
He looked at her.
That distinction seemed never to have occurred to him.
That afternoon, the toxicologist called again.
The substance in the bottle was not modern.
Its active compound had been manufactured under several brand names for decades.
Mason went completely still.
Then he called Henry.
“Open my father's study.”
Henry stared.
“That room has been sealed for twenty years.”
“Open it.”
Arthur Blackwell's study occupied the oldest wing of the mansion.
Eleanor had ordered it closed after his death.
Dust covered the furniture.
Books lined the walls.
Mason entered like a man stepping into a grave.
Dorcas stayed beside him.
On the desk stood a framed photograph.
Mason at seventeen.
Smiling.
Dorcas had never seen him smile like that.
“You were happy.”
“Once.”
He opened drawers.
Old receipts.
Pens.
Business cards.
Nothing.
Then Dorcas noticed scratches beneath the desk.
“What's that?”
A small brass latch.
Mason pressed it.
A hidden drawer slid open.
Inside was a cassette recorder.
Three tapes.
And an envelope.
MASON.
His father's handwriting.
Mason could not move.
Dorcas touched the envelope.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
One word.
Almost a plea.
He opened it.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Son,
If you're reading this, I was right to be afraid.
Don't trust the person who tells you your memory is failing.
Trust what you wrote down before they told you to doubt it.
A.B.
Mason read it twice.
Then a third time.
Dorcas whispered, “Your father knew.”
Mason looked toward the cassette tapes.
Henry found an old player.
They inserted the first tape.
Static filled the room.
Then Arthur Blackwell's voice emerged from twenty years ago.
“If anything happens to me, my name is Arthur James Blackwell. I am not insane. Someone has been putting something in my drinks.”
Mason closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
“I don't know who yet. I suspect someone at Meridian. Money is disappearing through shell companies.”
Static.
Then:
“Adrian says I'm paranoid.”
Mason's eyes opened.
Dorcas stopped breathing.
Arthur continued:
“But Adrian is wrong about one thing.”
A pause.
“He thinks I've forgotten what I saw.”
The tape clicked off.
Dr. Adrian Fallon had been Arthur Blackwell's physician too.
Mason stood so abruptly the chair fell backward.
“I'll kill him.”
Dorcas stepped in front of him.
“No.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“He drugged my father.”
“We don't know that.”
“He's drugging my mother!”
“Then get evidence.”
“Get out of my way.”
Dorcas shoved him.
Mason froze.
Nobody shoved Mason Blackwell.
“You spent twenty years punishing yourself because you reacted before you knew the truth,” she said.
His chest rose sharply.
“Don't make the same mistake again.”
He stared down at her.
The rage slowly changed.
Not disappearing.
Becoming controlled.
“What do we do?”
“We listen to the other tapes.”
The second contained Arthur documenting missing company funds.
The third was damaged.
Most of it was static.
Then a voice.
Not Arthur's.
A younger Adrian Fallon.
“You should have taken the deal.”
Arthur replied, “Get out of my house.”
Another voice spoke.
A man's voice.
Low.
Unfamiliar.
“You're making this difficult.”
Arthur said one name.
“Victor.”
Mason stopped the tape.
“Victor?”
Dorcas looked at him.
“Who is Victor?”
Mason's face had become stone.
“Victor Hale.”
“Who is he?”
“My father's best friend.”
“Where is he now?”
Mason looked toward her.
May you like
“He's chairman of my board.”
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