Chapter 5 - The Nurse’s Confession
Thursday evening arrived with a suffocating, heavy heat that hung over the Scottsdale desert like a shroud.
Inside the mansion, Kelly was growing increasingly agitated. Two days had passed since Albert and Lillian flew to Tokyo, and according to Kelly’s pre-planned schedule, Paxton’s physical condition should have deteriorated past the point of no return.
Instead, his color looked better. His pulse, checked on the digital monitor, was alarmingly stable.
I was sitting in the armchair across from the hospital bed, reading a book, when Kelly marched into the living room, her face twisted with a harsh, unprofessional scowl.
“Something’s wrong,” Kelly snapped, walking over to the IV stand. She inspected the saline bag we had swapped out, her fingers running suspiciously along the tubing. “His vitals are too stable. He shouldn't be holding steady like this.”
I lowered my book, keeping my expression carefully blank. “Maybe he’s stronger than you think, Kelly.”
“Don't play games with me, Nicole,” she hissed, turning around with a syringe filled with a thick, amber-tinted liquid already drawn up in the barrel. “Your mother-in-law gave explicit instructions. If the asset transfer in Tokyo hits any snags before tomorrow morning, we accelerate the timeline. No more slow doses. Tonight, we finish it.”
She stepped toward the bed, raising the syringe toward the injection port.
That was our signal.
Before Kelly’s needle could touch the plastic valve, Paxton’s eyes snapped wide open. With a swift, powerful motion that completely belied his weeks of supposed unconsciousness, Paxton sat straight up in bed, his hand shooting out to lock around Kelly’s wrist in an iron grip.
Kelly shrieked, dropping the syringe. It shattered against the marble floor, splashing the toxic chemical across the tiles.
“What—what are you doing?!” Kelly gasped, her face draining of all color as she looked into Paxton’s blazing eyes. “You’re... you’re supposed to be—!”
“Paralyzed? Unconscious? Dying?” Paxton finished her sentence, his voice cold, deep, and dripping with absolute fury. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, standing up to his full height of six-foot-two. Though slightly unsteady, his presence was towering and terrifying.
“You poisoned me, Kelly,” Paxton said, stepping toward her. “You falsified medical records, accepted fifty thousand dollars in wire transfers from my mother’s offshore account, and conspired to commit murder.”
Kelly scrambled backward, her back slamming against the living room wall. “You can’t prove anything! The security camera—the logs—!”
“The security camera?” I interrupted, standing up from my chair and holding up my phone with a triumphant smile. “You mean the camera that Donald’s tech crew looped three days ago so it’s only playing a prerecorded loop of an empty room? Or do you mean the hidden directional audio-visual mics we installed behind every painting in this house?”
Kelly’s knees buckled. She slid down the wall, her hands trembling as she realized the absolute totality of her entrapment.
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“Please...” she whimpered, tears spilling over her cheeks. “Lillian made me do it! They said if I didn't cooperate, they would ruin my medical license and ensure I never worked in healthcare again! They paid me off!”
“Save it for the federal prosecutor, Kelly,” Paxton said coldly, walking over to the wall phone and dialing a direct three-digit code. “Marcus? The nurse is ready to make her formal confession. Send the marshals.”
