Chapter 6 - The Poison in the Rose
Grace instinctively shielded Lily behind her, clutching the black ledger against her ribs with one hand while her other hand slid slowly behind her back toward the open safe where the stainless-steel revolver lay.
"How did you get here so fast, Mason?" Grace asked, stalling for every second she could buy.
Mason stepped into the warm glow of the desk lamp, a cruel, triumphant smile spreading across his face. "I have GPS trackers on every single one of Adrian's vehicles, Grace. When you took the Audi from the hospital garage, you practically dropped a neon sign right to your location."
He raised his silenced pistol, aiming it directly at Grace’s forehead.
"Hand over the ledger, Grace. That book contains enough evidence to put me in a federal prison for three lifetimes. Give it to me, and I'll make your death fast."
"And what about Lily?" Grace demanded, her voice ringing with maternal fury. "She's a baby, Mason! She doesn't understand any of this!"
"She understands enough to identify my cologne and smell a surgical culture from ten feet away," Mason spat coldly. "She's an anomaly. And anomalies get put down."
Grace’s fingers brushed against the cold grip of the revolver inside the safe behind her.
I've never shot a gun in my life, Grace thought in sheer terror. If I miss, he kills us both.
Suddenly, Lily stepped out from behind Grace's skirt.
The three-year-old girl didn't cry. She didn't scream. She stared directly at Mason Reed with a calm, unnerving clarity that seemed far too mature for her age.
"You smell bad," Lily said clearly.
Mason frowned, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Shut up, kid."
"You smell like the yellow bottle under Mama's sink," Lily continued, taking a tiny step forward. "The yellow bottle with the skull picture on it."
Mason's brow furrowed. "What is she rambling about?"
Grace’s nursing brain instantly decoded her daughter's strange observation.
The yellow bottle under the sink... cyanide. Potassium cyanide smells like sweet bitter almonds.
"You didn't just pay Dr. Mercer to infect Adrian with bacteria, did you?" Grace said, her eyes widening in horrific realization. "You're wearing almond-scented cologne to cover up the smell of cyanide on your clothes! You have a vial of cyanide in your pocket right now!"
Mason’s eyes flared with shock. "How could a three-year-old possibly know—"
"LILY, DOWN!" Grace screamed.
Grace grabbed the stainless-steel revolver from the safe, dropped to her knee, and pulled the trigger with both hands.
BANG! BANG!
The heavy recoil of the .357 Magnum slammed into Grace’s wrists, sending two blinding flashes of fire across the study.
The first bullet shattered the heavy mahogany desk beside Mason. The second bullet struck Mason squarely in his right shoulder, tearing through his muscle and shattering his shoulder blade.
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"AAAAAGH!" Mason screamed, dropping his silenced pistol as he was lifted off his feet by the impact, crashing backward into a heavy bookshelf. Books rained down upon him in a shower of leather and paper.
Grace didn't wait to see if he was getting back up. She grabbed Lily, grabbed the ledger, scrambled over the fallen books, and sprinted out of the study into the dark hallway, heading straight for the estate's private security elevator.
