Chapter 3 - THE SLEEPY JUICE
The world outside the windshield blurred.
“Special sleepy juice?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain perfectly calm. “What do you mean, baby?”
“The white powder Daddy puts in your coffee before your night shifts,” Fiona said innocently, tracing a circle on the fogged-up window. “He told me it was sugar. But he said it was a secret game and I couldn't tell you.”
A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. Luca had been actively drugging me. He had been creating the narrative of an exhausted, unstable, erratic mother who fell asleep at the wheel and couldn't handle her shifts. And my sister, who lived in our guest room "to help out," was completely complicit.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of Martha Hayes. Martha was the charge nurse at my hospital—a sixty-year-old widow with a spine of steel and a heart of gold. When I pounded on her door at 7 A.M., she took one look at Fiona’s shivering frame and my pale face, and ushered us inside without a word.
Within ten minutes, Fiona was wrapped in a heated blanket on the couch, drinking warm milk.
I sat at Martha’s kitchen table and dumped the contents of the blue planner between us. I told her everything.
Martha’s face hardened. She picked up the orange pill bottle, her experienced eyes scanning the label. “Jessi, this is a Schedule IV sedative. Combined with your hospital shifts, this could have stopped your heart behind the wheel. We need to go to the police and get a blood test immediately.”
“I need to secure my bank accounts first,” I said, opening my laptop. “My father left a trust fund for Fiona. If they leased an apartment, they might be draining the accounts.”
I logged into our joint banking portal.
Access Denied. Account Frozen.
My breath caught. I grabbed my phone and powered it back on to call the bank. Instantly, a barrage of notifications flooded the screen. Dozens of missed calls from Luca.
But it was the text message from Chloe that made me freeze.
“Jessi, please call me. Luca is out of control. I found the boarding school brochures. I didn't know he was planning to send Fiona away. You have to believe me, I’m trying to stop him.”
Answer one: Chloe wasn't entirely on board with Luca’s master plan. She didn't want Fiona sent away.
Open two: If Chloe was trying to stop him, why did she sign the apartment lease? And what kind of leverage did Luca have over her to make her drug her own sister?
Before I could process the text, Martha walked back into the kitchen, her face drained of all color.
May you like
“Martha? What’s wrong?” I asked.
She parted the kitchen blinds with two fingers. “Jessi. There’s a police cruiser pulling into my driveway. And two officers are walking up to the door with a piece of paper.”
