“I don’t care what you call him,” said his father. “I just don’t want you depending on someone who won’t be there when you need him.”
“He’s here now,” said Josh.
His father smiled without humor.
“That’s because it doesn’t cost him anything,” he said. “When it’s not convenient for him anymore, he’ll disappear. He’s not reliable, Josh. I should never have let him spend so much time with you. He’s incredibly manipulative.”
“I don’t think he’s trying to cause trouble,” said Josh.
“That’s because you don’t know him well enough,” said his father. “It’s only a matter of time before he shows his true colors. For future reference, don’t believe anything he tells you. He’s nothing but a delusional old man.”
Josh glanced at Richard, who was near enough to hear them. To his surprise, Richard didn’t appear to be offended. Josh realized his father wasn’t trying to hurt Richard by insulting him. He was merely speaking his mind with no consideration for Richard’s feelings. Somehow, this made the feud between them seem more irreconcilable than ever.
Chapter 8
After the children left for school the next morning, Agnes gave a concoction of medications to Sabrina to minimize her chances of reacting badly to the drug. Sabrina began to feel drowsy. She relaxed, only opening her eyes occasionally to look at her husband’s face. Arthur refused to leave her side, and even though she didn’t always agree with him, she was glad he was there.
Her thoughts became sluggish, but she congratulated herself. Everything was going according to plan. The older children were safely out of the way at school, and Nora had volunteered to take care of Yvonne. She barely paid any attention as Lisa’s father mixed the drug in a bag of saline, attached the tube, and turned on the pump.
Sabrina envisioned her body being infused with something wonderful—a glowing light that spread with each contraction of her heart. She listened to its steady beat, and after an indeterminate length of time, she felt it accelerating. She tried to open her eyes, but she didn’t have the strength to move. She started shivering. Her extremities went numb, and sweat drenched her face. A horrible diffuse pain spread through her body until she couldn’t think about anything else.
“Sabrina, what’s going on?” said Agnes.
Sabrina didn’t reply. Her mouth was dry, but she felt sick.
“Andrew, we need to give her more pain medicine,” said Agnes.
He must have agreed, because a moment later, Sabrina felt a rush of weakness that chased away not only the pain, but everything else as well. When she opened her eyes again, the intolerable agony had faded into a gnawing ache that seemed to originate from her bones. As long as she lay completely still, she could endure it.
She listened to the rhythmic whirring of the pump and began to feel tired again, despite her discomfort. The drug was gone; it had been released into her body to work its mischief or its miracle, but the saline was still dripping into her arm, a precaution against the deadly fluid loss that would occur if she started to bleed. No one else was in the room. The house was peaceful.
She was about to fall asleep when a noise startled her. She was too lethargic to move, but she opened her eyes and looked out from between the lids. Her gaze wandered to the table at the foot of the bed. Someone was standing there: a man wearing a suit.
He sifted through the papers on the table and read the notes on Agnes’ clipboard. Then, he shuffled to the waste basket and fished around in the plastic wrappers and alcohol wipes and scraps of gauze. Not satisfied, he lifted the sharps container where Agnes had discarded all the used needles and rocked it back and forth. The empty vial that had contained the drug rolled around inside with a hollow sound. He put his eye up to the opening to confirm its presence and tried to get it out, but the construction of the lid stopped him.
Sabrina’s fear finally got the upper hand. The terrified sound that emerged from her mouth frightened the man, and by the time Agnes dashed into the room, he was gone. Agnes grabbed Sabrina’s shoulders and steadied her.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Sabrina. “It seemed so real, but it couldn’t have been. There was a man in here, standing over there by the table. He was looking for something, but he ran away when I screamed.”
“I was only gone for a minute,” said Agnes.
She checked Sabrina’s pulse and a frown appeared on her face.
“Please don’t tell me you think Richard is right,” said Sabrina with a groan. “He’s been driving Arthur crazy with his ridiculous predictions, and if he has a legitimate reason to believe someone broke into the house, his paranoia will get worse than ever. There’s no way it could have been real. It was just a hallucination.”
Agnes searched for evidence of an intrusion, but she found nothing conclusive. Sabrina eased herself back down onto the pillows. The fear receded from her mind, but the pain intensified. It eventually demanded her full attention, and she began to realize how difficult it would be to maintain her courage.
“Why does it hurt so much?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Agnes. “Peterson thought the drug made the immune system go into overdrive, but he wasn’t entirely sure. It was one of the things he was studying when Richard betrayed him.”
“Using you?” said Sabrina.
“Yes,” said Agnes. “It sounds horrible, but I was actually one of the lucky ones. You may have noticed that we diluted the drug and put it directly into your bloodstream. That’s because it’s toxic in its concentrated form. It causes massive tissue damage. Talk about pain! There were people who lost their arms.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen to me,” said Sabrina.
“It won’t,” said Agnes. “It’s totally avoidable when the correct route of administration is used. Peterson didn’t worry
