Chapter 7 - THE DOCTOR WHO DISAPPEARED
Giovanni reached Dr. Chen's laboratory in twelve minutes.
The front door was unlocked.
One chair lay overturned and a tray of glass vials had shattered across the floor.
There was no blood.
That made Giovanni more afraid, not less.
Luca found Maya's phone beneath a cabinet.
Its last outgoing message had been sent to Giovanni but never delivered.
The draft read, "Elena was not poisoned once. She was being dosed for weeks."
Giovanni felt his stomach turn.
Elena had complained of headaches, dizziness, and sudden exhaustion during the final month of her life.
Doctors blamed stress.
Someone had been making her sick slowly enough to look natural.
Rafael searched Maya's computer and found an encrypted toxicology report.
It identified a rare anticoagulant combined with a sedative used in overseas clinics.
The manufacturer had only three registered importers in California.
One belonged to a shell company Giovanni recognized immediately.
It had been created by his late father decades earlier.
"That company was closed in 2009."
Luca shook his head.
"On paper."
A security alert sounded from the estate.
Someone had used Elena's old access code to enter the wine cellar.
Giovanni called the guards and raced home.
They found no intruder.
Instead, one brick had been removed from the cellar wall.
Behind it was a sealed metal tube Elena had hidden there.
Inside was a handwritten ledger showing years of payments from the dead shell company to one recipient.
Giovanni read the final name and went still.
Maya's lab camera showed a masked person entering ten minutes after she began the toxicology test.
The intruder knew exactly which refrigerator held Elena's samples and ignored every other drawer.
Luca said the precision suggested medical knowledge or detailed instructions.
Giovanni began writing down names because memory was no longer something he trusted.
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The recipient was Teresa Moretti.
His own sister.
