Chapter 2 - The Pharmacy Logbook
The police took Francine away in handcuffs through the main lobby of Saint Jude Hospital. She did not go quietly. She screamed about her lawyer, her reputation, and her rights until the heavy glass doors closed behind her.
By midnight, Colton’s room was quiet again, save for the monitors.
Roger sat in a vinyl armchair in the corner, his head buried in his hands. He hadn't spoken a word since the officers led his mother out. The silence between us was vast and cold, filled with sixteen years of unaddressed cowardice and ignored red flags.
Dr. Martinez walked into the room carrying a clip-board with fresh lab results.
"Bethany," he said softly, motioning for me to step into the hallway.
I followed him out into the dimly lit corridor. "Is he improving?"
"The toxicology panel came back," Dr. Martinez said, leaning against the nurses' station counter. "It wasn't just opioids. The secondary drug in his system was Fendrexin—a heavy, obsolete cardiac sedative that was taken off the market five years ago due to severe neurological side effects."
I felt a chill run down my spine. "How did she get a drug that was taken off the market?"
"That's where Detective Miller comes in," Dr. Martinez said, pointing toward a tall, weary-looking man in a dark trench coat who was walking up the hall toward us.
Detective Miller pulled off his hat, nodding politely to me. "Mrs. Vance? I'm the primary investigator on your son's case. We executed an emergency search warrant on your home two hours ago."
I held my breath. "What did you find?"
"In your mother-in-law's bedroom, hidden behind the false back of her built-in closet, we found a locked steel safe," Detective Miller said, pulling out a small notebook. "Inside that safe, we found three dozen unlabelled prescription bottles containing crushed powders, obsolete pharmaceuticals, and a leather-bound logbook."
"A logbook?" I asked.
"She kept notes, Mrs. Vance," Miller said, his face grave. "Meticulous, dates-and-times notes. She’s been logging dosages, heart rates, and physical responses for your son since November."
"Why?" I choked out, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. "Why would a grandmother poison her own grandson?"
"From what we can gather from the early entries," Miller explained, "she started giving him small doses of beta-blockers last year to force him to fail his swim meets. She wrote that if Colton got a athletic scholarship to California, you and Roger would follow him out west, and she would be left alone."
My knees buckled. Detective Miller caught my elbow, helping me steady myself against the wall.
She didn't just want control over our house—she wanted to keep us trapped in her sphere of influence forever. To keep Roger under her thumb, she needed Colton to stay sick, dependent, and grounded in this town. When the small doses of beta-blockers stopped working because Colton’s young body built a tolerance, she escalated to Fendrexin and stolen pain medication.
"Where is she now?" I whispered.
"She's at the precinct," Miller replied. "Her legal counsel arrived twenty minutes ago—a high-priced corporate defense attorney named Arthur Vance, her brother."
"Uncle Arthur," I muttered. The family fix-it man. The attorney who had spent forty years burying the family’s dirty laundry under non-disclosure agreements and quiet settlements.
"He's already trying to push a narrative that your mother-in-law has early-stage dementia," Miller warned me. "He's going to argue that she was confused, mixing up medications, and didn't realize what she was giving the boy."
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I looked back through the glass window of Room 412. Roger was still sitting in the chair, staring at the floor, looking entirely crushed under the weight of his mother’s lifetime of manipulation.
"She doesn't have dementia," I said, my voice turning into iron. "She knew every milligram she gave him. And I am going to make sure she dies in a prison cell."
