Vitamin Sea

by Maia Ross

  He made a strangled noise in his throat.

  “I’ve been here a while. You’re a pretty sound sleeper. Where’s that laptop, I wonder? I bet it’s in the lake, personally. And you know what else? I found some size six ladieswear. Emily’s a size six, isn’t she?”

  Richard’s eyes lit up with horror.

  “You knew Charlotte was at the clinic, and it would have been easy for you to call in a bomb scare and take a shot at her from your office. You’ll inherit everything if Scooter dies, so why not? And that’s why you didn’t want my security staff into the estate. Because you need Charlotte to be as exposed as possible. And you think you’re going to get that, but you won’t, you little sneak weasel.”

  He glared at me.

  “I am going to protect Charlotte, a woman who’s only ever been kind and generous to those around her, which is pretty much the complete opposite of you, no? That’s a promise. Whatever you try, whoever you’ve hired, I’m going to be there to protect her, just like I was at the clinic. And I’m not going to call the police, Richard. I think that’s the important thing to understand.”

  Richard looked like he was trying not to look frightened, which I appreciated. More of a challenge. But he was able to calm himself. “You have no proof of anything.”

  He was right, the little twerp. I’d tossed the cottage before waking him up, and there were no guns or laptops or written confessions floating about anywhere. Just some ladies’ Fruit of the Loom’s. It was most irksome.

  But I didn’t let anything show in my face. “And how long have you been cozied up to Emily, I wonder?”

  He sputtered, looking more outraged than he did when I accused him of being out to get Charlotte.

  “Cavorting with the help? Isn’t that more your speed? I barely know the girl,” he said.

  “What help am I cavorting with? And who speaks like that these days? Honestly?”

  He waved a hand at me. “Stop this nonsense. I’m just not enraged with her like I am with you and—” He looked like he was trying to control himself. “Listen up, you: I’m going to do whatever I want with Charlotte and her money. And I’m going to use every single cent of hers to defend myself in court.”

  “I—”

  He held a hand up to stop me. “And let me tell you something else. What happened to personal responsibility? Is it just something nobody cares about anymore? How about you explain that to me, you hobbit-sized whacko? How am I to blame for something other people did? If a patient follows instructions, they don’t get addicted to their medications; it’s just that simple.”

  I moved my chair a little closer to his bed. His eyes widened. “That’s not the case,” I said. “Not at all. Your own internal studies show that your medication does not last for the twelve hours you claim it does. For some patients, it doesn’t even last six. Half the time it says on the label. Your label. And that’s the real problem, isn’t it? Because the way you got your market share was by claiming your product did something that no other medicine out there could do, even though your customers have to take more and more because the dose they’ve been prescribed just doesn’t work. And you, a doctor. Shame on you.”

  “They’re all filthy addicts. Junkies. Half of them end up on heroin.”

  “Of course they do. It’s cheaper.”

  He looked affronted. “I’ve been running a legitimate business!”

  “Really? Is it legitimate to force staff to work on Christmas, and make them come into the office on official holidays? Always with last-minute notice? Is it legitimate to badger salespeople, constantly increasing their quotas? To peddle your lies to the medical community? To hand out all those juicy kickbacks to all those doctors? And didn’t you claim that your product wasn’t addictive—even though your internal studies showed it was! Studies you personally refused to release, even though your staff advised you to, even though ethically it was your responsibility!” I stopped myself. I was running out of breath. I’d heard from too many people—too many older people—who’d become ensnared by Richard’s vile medications. No one seemed to care that the elderly became just as addicted as the young. And there was a tone of...indifference…to the fact that senior citizens were losing years of their lives when the same thing was happening to young people. Young people who “had the rest of their lives in front of them.” What on earth did people my age have? Death staring at them from their supper plates? Cardiac arrest around every corner? Personally, I planned on living to be a hundred years old, which was, if I could count correctly, three more decades of life.

  “You can’t prove anything,” Richard snarled. “And you know what else? This is my parents’ home, not Charlotte’s. I’ll be back in the main house before you can spit. She owes it to me and I am going to take it and there’s nothing on earth you can do to stop me.”

  “I’ve always wondered why Charlotte got the estate and you didn’t. Care to enlighten me?”

  “Because they were trying to punish me!”

  “For what?” My head was cocked. I tried to sift through all the terrible things Richard had been caught doing when I was growing up. It was hard to pick just one.

  “I don’t know.” His voice was a plaintive wail. “But it should have been mine. The eldest male child in our family has always inherited.”

  “But Charlotte is the eldest.”

  “Eldest female. Worthless. What has she done with her life? She—”

  “Well, by end of day tomorrow, she’ll have raised twenty-five million dollars for cancer charities. Juvenile ones. You know, like the one Charlotte’s little sister—your cousin—had?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair and looked like he was trying to reclaim some dignity. It didn’t especially work, but I let him take the minute. He looked like he needed the rest.

  “You can’t prove anything,” he said, sounding like a sullen toddler, the lamplight shining on the small scar lodged between his eyebrows. Actually, he’d been a sullen toddler who’d become a sullen adult. When I was growing up, he would act like a complete brat, shoving me into bushes and the like. Which is why Mother decided to teach me about effectively overcoming a larger assailant, being a petite woman herself. Including the exact right time to bonk someone with the heel of your shoe. Which was why Richard had that scar in the first place.

  “Not. Yet.” I let him absorb that for a minute. “And let me tell you something, Richard. You are not going to lay a hand on Charlotte tomorrow or any of the other tomorrows I let you have.”

  “What do you think you can do to me?” he sneered. “Nothing. There is not a single thing you can do to stop me.”

  “Let me put it to you like this, Richard. If anything happens to Charlotte tomorrow, I don’t really care who’s responsible. Because I’m going to blame you anyway. You got that?”

  I let that hang in the air for a moment.

  Richard didn’t initially seem like he wanted to get it, but eventually, he rallied, which suited me just fine. The more spunk he showed, the happier I’d be when I took him down. He lunged at his covers, ripping them back, and stepped out of bed with his right foot.

  But then he fell arse over teakettle, as Mother used to say. Because I’d tied his left foot to the bedframe. He lay on the ground, his mouth opening and closing like a beached flounder.

  I stood over him while he flailed. And then I said, with as much venom as I could muster, “So don’t you tell me there’s nothing I can do to stop you. Because I am unstoppable.”

  Thirty—Irma

  I had a lovely night’s sleep and breakfasted alone on the terrace, observing the preparations for the fundraiser. Employees ran to and fro, and Richard’s security staff made their presence known, while Camille’s melted into the treelines. A team of energetic young people was trying to layout the infrastructure needed for the massive tent that everyone would be suppering under, while the bomb-sniffing police dogs Mavis had arranged for nipped at their heels.

  I organized tea with Charlotte, and
on my way down I got a call on my cellular telephone. I decided to speed walk up and down one of the long hallways as I talked. Get the heart pumping.

  “Hello,” I said cheerily.

  “Hey, Irma.” It was Julian, and his voice sounded...depressed? Full of despair? It was impossible to know; I’d never heard that tone come out of him before.

  “Julian, dear, how are you?” I made sure to keep the sudden flash of worry out of my voice.

  “I’m...okay. Where are you?”

  “I’m at Charlotte’s.”

  “Good. Okay. I have some news, but I can’t get ahold of her.”

  “Can it wait until you’re here tonight?”

  “I’m sorry, it can’t.”

  I did not like the sound of that, but I forced some calm into my voice. “It’s no problem, Julian, I’m on my way down to speak to her right now.”

  “Can you please bring the phone to her?”

  “Certainly.”

  I made my way to the terrace, where Charlotte was holding court. She picked up her teacup and blew on it. “No, over there. To the right,” she called to a harried young man who was carrying a stack of linens. “Your other right!” The poor bloke ran in a complete circle, then finally headed in the correct direction.

  “He tries,” she said to me, almost apologetically.

  “Charlotte,” I said gently. “I have Julian on the phone for you.”

  “Certainly,” she said, waving at Emily, who was directing staffers to plop decorations in the pool, large white shimmery balls with lights in them. “Put him on speaker, please.”

  I stabbed at the buttons on the phone. “Julian? Go ahead.”

  “I’m not comfortable being on speaker, Charlotte. Is there anyone else around?”

  “Just Irma, and you can tell her anything, Julian.”

  “Okay.” There was a loud inhale. “Well, we know why you collapsed the other day.”

  Charlotte’s eyes met mine.

  “You overdosed on nicotine.”

  “What?” Charlotte squealed.

  “Nicotine. It causes fatigue, drowsiness, nausea, loss of appetite, red eyes and in some cases, arrhythmia.”

  “How long?” I barked.

  “How long what?”

  “How long has someone being poisoning her?”

  Another exhale. “It’s difficult to say, unfortunately. Charlotte is so petite it could have been from a single dose. Although it’s possible someone has been slipping you small amounts over a longer period of time. Microdoses, maybe.”

  “I’ve been staying close to home lately, prepping for the fundraiser,” she said, her face ashen. “I went out for the first time in ages to lunch with Irma earlier this week. That’s the last time Chef Phillipe hasn’t cooked for me in a long time. Oh, and the Club this past week.”

  “Would the poisoned food have tasted odd?” I asked.

  “It’s possible,” Julian said. “It would probably taste bitter.”

  Bitter…

  She shook her head. “Are you sure there’s no mistake, Julian?”

  “I had them run the tests twice.”

  “I think you should cancel the fundraiser,” I said with feeling.

  “I agree, Charlotte. It’s not worth the risk, and we just can’t know what’s happening. I am very worried about you. You should call the police. I can do it for you.”

  “No.” Her mouth was tiny, pressed together, and decided. “We can’t possibly. We have people coming from all over the country. From other parts of the world, even! The children are depending on us.”

  “Charlotte, your safety is the only thing that’s important, and I simply can’t guarantee it under these conditions,” I protested. “The estate will be swarming with partygoers, and you are in someone’s crosshairs. Let’s pack you up and get you to Vancouver. We’ll send Camille and some of her staff with you. You could be out of here in an hour. Let Richard step in and host the fundraiser tonight.”

  “If someone really wanted me dead, they would have given me enough poison to kill me, and then I’d be dead, and then I wouldn’t have to hear the two of you tell me to cancel my fundraiser!”

  I wasn’t quite certain what to say to that, and Julian didn’t seem to know either.

  “I won’t eat or drink anything I haven’t prepared myself. I promise. You can protect me, Irma. I know you can.”

  I felt panic rising in my gullet. “Charlotte, this is not my area of expertise whatsoever. I hate crowds. It’s impossible to keep someone safe in the kind of atmosphere you’re going to have here tonight. We can’t control the perimeter, we can’t even get a metal detector here on time!”

  “Oh, we can’t possibly have a metal detector.”

  I made a frustrated noise. “Someone has tried to shoot you, someone has poisoned you, someone hacked into the island clinic and uploaded an application dedicated to snuffing out Van Oots, people have threatened the family generally and you specifically. And they’ve been very specific that something is going to happen today! This is serious. And let me just remind you Richard gets eeeeeeeverything if you, pardon my French, kick the bucket.” I took a breath.

  “There are police dogs everywhere, Irma, and police officers and security. I won’t eat or drink anything, I promise.”

  I sat on my hands so I wouldn’t strangle her. “Julian, is there anything Charlotte can do to help her recover from being almost poisoned to death?”

  “We gave her some activated charcoal at the clinic because of the upset stomach, and that’s actually the main treatment for nicotine poisoning. But I’d like you to come see me at the clinic tomorrow, Charlotte, and I’ll run a few more tests.”

  “Thank you, dear. I’m going to call you back.” I clicked off. To Charlotte, I hissed, “This is madness.” I smacked my hand on the table. Charlotte flinched. Which was good. I wanted her scared. And if scared of me was where we were going to start, that was just fine. “Charlotte Van Oot! What has gotten into you?”

  “Richard has never brought me food in my life. Ever. He doesn’t take meals with me. He barely even knows where the kitchen is. He stays in his cottage, eating take-away.”

  “Richard was in the main house last night.”

  She waved a hand. “Hardly ever happens.”

  “Well, he only needs to kill you once.” I let out a deep breath. “And Chef Phillipe is reliable?”

  “He’s been here for thirty-two years. He’s a member of the family.”

  “Richard is also family.”

  She gave me a grudging shrug.

  “What about Emily?”

  She looked pensive. “I’ve never eaten or drank anything she’s brought me. She’s around a lot, but she doesn’t have anything to do with the day-to-day running of the estate.”

  I pressed my lips together. “You can’t know for sure. She has the full run of the estate. You have to cancel the fundraiser or leave and let someone else host it.”

  “You’re over-reacting.” She raised a hand to quiet my protests. “You do have the tendency to be melodramatic, Irma.”

  Since she was right and that was one of my best features, I wasn’t quite sure what her point was. I tried to focus. “The tea you had at the Club the other day. It was terrible. And bitter, remember?”

  She nodded slowly. “And you know...it was odd, but I never asked for any. Someone just brought it to me.”

  My pulse quickened. “Who?”

  She blinked a few times. “Theresa.”

  “Perfect. She’ll be here tonight. She’ll probably poison you even more!” I didn’t mean it; I couldn’t actually see Theresa as a potential threat. This was the problem with dealing with people I knew. They all seemed so innocent. Becoming a civilian was going to be the death of me.

  “I don’t have to eat anything tonight, but I do have to host the fundraiser. This is my last year as the chairperson of the board, and I promised to get that wing built. I’m sorry, Irma. I can’t back down just because someone has a bee in
their bonnet.”

  A bee! In their bonnet! She was impossible. I briefly debated just killing her myself, I was so irritated. It was so much easier to foil assassination plots against heads of state. Someone wanted person X dead. You had to keep person X alive. They were annoyed by your security measures, but you didn't care. You saved the day, and everyone had tea. The end.

  “I know you can take care of everything, Irma. You’ve never failed before.”

  I took a deep breath, looked around, then leaned toward her. “Charlotte,” I said carefully, “I have failed at my job too many times to count. And that is the truth.”

  “You’ve never failed me.”

  I closed my eyes. How problematic human beings were. Couldn’t we all just behave properly? Why must people be so vexatious? I searched for the correct words, ones that would convince her to cancel the fundraiser and let me stuff her into a nuclear-hardened bunker. “But—”

  Charlotte looked, suddenly, every one of her eighty-six years, and I felt bad. Not very, but a little. “Irma, please, no more fundraising talk. And no more Richard talk. Not today.”

  “Please, I have to tell you—”

  “Tomorrow,” she said firmly. “And I want you to be nice to him tonight, please.”

  “Charlotte!” I exhaled slowly. It was hopeless. She was impossible. How could I protect her under these circumstances? “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I’ll try to get through the night without having a scene with Richard.” I said this with a smile, even though I did not, actually, have this intention. If Richard was going to try anything hinky, I’d catch him. And if it was someone else I’d find them. And get enough evidence to get them locked up. In the meantime…was waterboarding still illegal? Well, no matter, I had no intentions of getting caught. My work would be done and dusted before the police even knew what was happening.

  I hoped.

  “Hellooooo!” Mrs. Sepp’s voice trilled out from the croquet lawn. “Irma?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Sepp,” I said warmly, and Charlotte greeted her as well. She started to make her way toward us, Emily trailing behind her. My eyes narrowed when I noticed her. If Emily’s hanky panky-ing around with Richard was a threat to Charlotte, I was going to fix her wagon.