Maya's Discovery

The blue dot on the screen was a solitary witness to Iris's confusion. Two heat signatures. Two prisons. One house with a bricked-up cell, another with a daughter delivering sedatives.

Julian had been busy.

Iris crept back to her car, the dry leaves crackling under her feet sounding like gunshots in the quiet night. She didn't start the engine until she had coasted down the incline of the access road, putting distance between herself and the carriage house.

As soon as she hit the main road, her phone buzzed.

Maya.

"Mom?" Maya's voice was a whisper, vibrating with a specific, academic kind of panic. "Are you somewhere safe? I need you to look at something."

"I'm driving," Iris said, checking her rearview mirror. No headlights. "What is it?"

"I couldn't sleep after... after I saw him. So I started digging. You know how I have access to the university's medical archives for my genetics project?"

"Maya, this isn't the time for homework."

"It's not homework! It's the family tree. I was looking for the markers. For the 'sickness' everyone says Elias had."

Iris tightened her grip on the wheel. "Schizophrenia. It runs in the male line. That's what Julian always said."

"That's just it," Maya said. "It doesn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I pulled the records for Great-Grandfather Vance. And his brothers. And their sons. Mom, there is no history of schizophrenia in the Vance line. None. Zero."

"Maybe it skipped a generation. Maybe it was recessive."

"I checked the maternal lines too. Nothing. But I found something else." Maya took a breath. "I found Grandfather's autopsy report. From 1988."

"He died of a heart attack," Iris said. "We all know that."

"He died of cardiac arrest secondary to *toxicology*," Maya corrected. "Mom, he had massive amounts of heavy metals in his system. Arsenic. Lead. The coroner flagged it as 'environmental exposure' because of the paint factory the family used to own. But the levels were acute."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying the symptoms of chronic heavy metal poisoning—paranoia, hallucinations, tremors—look exactly like schizophrenia. And they look exactly like dementia."

Iris nearly swerved off the road.

Cordelia. The 'fragile' aunt. The woman who heard noises in the floor and was dismissed as senile.

Elias. The 'unstable' cousin. The boy who was locked away for his own protection.

"It wasn't genetic," Iris whispered. "It was administered."

"If Elias had schizophrenia, the onset would be late teens, early twenties," Maya said, her voice gaining speed. "But if he was being poisoned... Mom, if he had this, he couldn't travel. He wouldn't just be 'confused.' He'd be physically incapacitated. He'd need 24-hour care."

"He has it," Iris said, thinking of the carriage house. Thinking of the basement. "He has 24-hour surveillance."

"Mom, who benefits if the direct male heirs are incompetent?"

"Julian," Iris said. "Only Julian."

She looked at the bag of pills on the passenger seat. The Clonazepam. The Risperidone.

They weren't just keeping him quiet. They were finishing the job Julian started thirty years ago. They were chemically lobotomizing the only person who could take the money back.

"Maya," Iris said. "Print everything. Every record. Every scan. Then delete your search history and go to the campus police."

"I'm not leaving you," Maya said.

"You're not leaving me. You're building the case. Because I'm going to get him out."

"Mom, if Elias had this, he couldn't travel. He'd need 24-hour care."