Chapter 4 - Project HawthorneMoney can make ordinary cruelty efficient.
At 4:08 a.m., I was still staring at the tiny microphone lying in my palm.
It was smaller than a dime.
No manufacturer marking.
No obvious battery compartment.
I knew enough from growing up around executives obsessed with security to understand that it was not something purchased at a neighborhood electronics store.
Someone had deliberately installed surveillance inside my bedroom.
The question was when.
And why.
At sunrise, I put the device back exactly where I had found it.
That choice terrified me, but removing it would reveal that I knew.
Instead, I turned music on quietly and called Martin from the bathroom with the shower running.
“I need to find the boy.”
“You need police.”
“Not yet.”
“Claire—”
“If the person who did this has access to my bedroom, my medication, my food and my father, I need to know who I can trust.”
Martin went silent.
I added, “That kid risked something to warn me.”
“I’ll ask around.”
“And the tea sample?”
“Delivered.”
“Good.”
At breakfast, I played helpless.
Evelyn watched me drink orange juice.
No tea.
“I thought I’d switch things up.”
Her smile did not reach her eyes.
“Chamomile helps your anxiety.”
“I’m sick of chamomile.”
Dad entered mid-conversation.
“Then give the girl coffee.”
Evelyn laughed.
“Coffee will make her jittery.”
“My company was built on coffee.”
I smiled at him.
For a few seconds, everything felt normal.
That hurt most.
Because if Evelyn was doing this, my father had been sleeping beside the person destroying his daughter.
At ten, Dr. Levin arrived unexpectedly.
He had been my neurologist since the second week of the illness.
Tall, silver-haired, distinguished.
The kind of doctor whose framed awards occupied an entire wall.
“Evelyn asked me to stop by.”
Of course she had.
He examined me in the sunroom.
When he tested my knee reflex, I deliberately tensed my thigh and hoped he would interpret my response as minimal.
“Hm.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He tested the other.
“Any sensation?”
“No.”
That lie came easier than I expected.
Dr. Levin nodded.
“I want to increase the baclofen.”
My stomach tightened.
“That’s the pill?”
“Yes.”
“What if I stop taking it?”
Evelyn answered from the doorway.
“Why would you?”
I looked at her.
“I hate swallowing pills.”
Dr. Levin smiled.
“Stopping suddenly isn’t advisable.”
That afternoon, Martin reported that the white pill was indeed baclofen—but at an unusually high dosage when combined with another sedative detected in residue.
“Would that paralyze me?”
“Not alone,” Martin said. “But clinic doctor says in combination with whatever they found in your blood, it could worsen weakness dramatically.”
“Whatever they found?”
“They’re sending it for specialized toxicology.”
“What compound?”
“They’re not certain yet.”
My fear grew.
Then Martin said, “I found the kid.”
I sat upright.
“Where?”
“Sometimes sleeps near an old church on Arch Street.”
“I’m coming.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Martin.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I don’t need to stand.”
Twenty-five minutes later, we slipped out through the service entrance while Evelyn attended a charity committee luncheon.
Martin told the staff he was taking me to physical therapy.
The church was surrounded by scaffolding.
Behind it, beneath an overhang, several unhoused people had arranged blankets and cardboard.
When the boy saw us, he ran.
“Wait!” I called.
He disappeared into an alley.
Martin pushed my wheelchair after him until I shouted, “Stop.”
Then I did something reckless.
I locked the wheelchair.
Placed both hands on the armrests.
And stood.
Martin whispered, “Jesus.”
My knees shook.
I took one step.
Then another.
The boy had stopped twenty yards away.
He was staring at me.
“You were right,” I said.
His expression crumpled.
“I told you.”
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated.
“Eli.”
“Eli, who puts something in my tea?”
He looked behind him.
“Can’t say.”
“Why?”
“They’ll find me.”
“Who?”
His mouth tightened.
I took another unstable step.
“You knew my name, didn’t you?”
His eyes widened.
“You called me Claire yesterday.”
He looked down.
“Please.”
“How?”
“My mom.”
Everything stopped.
“Who is your mother?”
He shook his head.
Martin crouched.
“No one’s going to hurt you.”
Eli laughed bitterly.
“You don’t know that.”
He was eleven years old and already sounded older than both of us.
I took another step.
My knee buckled.
Eli instinctively caught my hand.
His fingers were freezing.
“You’re getting better,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t go home.”
My blood chilled.
“Why?”
“Because she knows.”
“Evelyn?”
The boy jerked his hand away.
I had my answer.
“How do you know my stepmother?”
His lips trembled.
“My mom used to work at your house.”
I searched my memory.
Housekeepers.
Kitchen staff.
Temporary nurses.
There had been dozens of employees over the years.
“What was her name?”
Eli looked toward the street.
“Marisol Vega.”
I knew the name.
She had been one of our housekeepers.
Quiet woman.
Dark hair usually twisted into a bun.
She disappeared about four months earlier.
Evelyn had said Marisol stole jewelry.
Dad had refused to press charges because he felt sorry for her family.
“What did she see?” I whispered.
Eli’s eyes filled.
“She said the lady was putting drops in your tea.”
My heart stopped.
“She saw Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to your mother?”
His face broke.
“I don’t know.”
Martin and I exchanged a look.
“She went to work one night,” Eli said, “and never came home.”
“How long ago?”
“Ninety-three days.”
Three days before my legs failed.
I could barely hear my own voice.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“They said she probably left.”
“Did you tell them about the tea?”
“She told me not to. She said if anything happened, I should find you.”
He reached inside his sweatshirt.
From an inner pocket, he pulled a plastic sandwich bag.
Inside was a small brass key and a folded piece of paper.
“My mom gave me this.”
He handed it to me.
My fingers shook as I unfolded the paper.
There were only eight handwritten words.
CLAIRE — ASK YOUR FATHER ABOUT PROJECT HAWTHORNE. TRUST NO DOCTOR.
I read it twice.
Then a car engine roared at the alley entrance.
Eli went white.
A black sedan had stopped at the curb.
Same model as the one I had seen near Franklin Square.
The rear passenger door opened.
A man in a charcoal suit stepped out.
Eli whispered, “That’s him.”
“Who?”
“The man who followed my mom.”
Martin grabbed the wheelchair handles.
“Move.”
The man started toward us.
Martin pushed me rapidly through the alley.
Eli ran beside us.
“Where are we going?” I shouted.
“Anywhere but here.”
We turned onto a busier street.
The man followed.
Then another appeared from the opposite direction.
Martin stopped.
Trapped.
A delivery truck rumbled beside us.
“Claire,” Martin said, “when I tell you, get out of the chair.”
“What?”
“Can you run?”
“No!”
“Can you fall forward convincingly?”
“That I can do.”
The men closed in.
Martin suddenly shoved the wheelchair sideways.
I tipped onto the sidewalk.
People screamed.
The charcoal-suited man hesitated.
Martin punched him.
Eli ducked beneath the other man’s arm.
I crawled behind a parked van, dragging my legs.
Then I saw the open side door of the delivery truck.
“Eli!”
He saw it too.
Martin kicked the second man backward.
We climbed into the truck as the driver returned carrying a dolly.
“What the hell?”
“DRIVE!” Martin shouted.
Maybe it was the blood running from Martin’s eyebrow.
Maybe it was the two men charging toward us.
The driver did not argue.
The truck lurched into traffic.
I lay on the metal floor gasping.
Eli was beside me.
Martin slammed the door.
For several blocks, no one spoke.
Then I looked at the brass key.
A number was stamped into it.
“Eli,” I said, “do you know what this opens?”
He nodded.
“Train station locker.”
Thirty minutes later, we stood before locker 317 inside a commuter terminal.
The key turned.
Inside sat a cheap canvas backpack.
Nothing else.
Martin opened it carefully.
There were photographs.
Documents.
A flash drive.
And a brown prescription bottle.
My name was printed on the label.
But I had never seen it before.
Beneath the bottle lay a photograph of Evelyn handing an envelope to Dr. Levin.
On the back, Marisol had written a date.
The day before my first symptoms.
And beneath it:
THEY ARE NOT TRYING TO KILL CLAIRE.
THEY NEED HER ALIVE UNTIL OCTOBER 14.
I looked at Martin.
October 14 was six weeks away.
“What happens October fourteenth?” he asked.
I knew exactly what happened.
“My twenty-third birthday.”
May you like
And according to my mother’s will, on my twenty-third birthday, I gained direct control of the Whitmore family trust.
Worth eight hundred and forty million dollars.
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