Chapter 2 - THE THURSDAY DROPS
Dr. Vernon Hale arrived at 8:17 p.m. carrying the same black medical case he had carried for years.
Grant sat in his study behind dark glasses.
Hannah was supposed to be upstairs.
Instead, she waited in the butler's pantry with Daniel, listening through a recorder hidden beneath Grant's desk.
Hale sounded cheerful.
"Busy week?"
"Normal."
"Any headaches? Light flashes? Pressure?"
Grant kept his voice flat.
"No."
It was the first medical lie he had told Hale.
The case clicked open.
Grant heard glass touch glass.
"Same drops?" he asked.
A pause.
Tiny.
But real.
"Of course."
Hale tilted Grant's head back and placed two drops in each eye.
Burning spread immediately.
Grant had accepted that pain every Thursday because Hale told him it protected damaged tissue.
Tonight, he counted seconds.
Eleven before the ache sharpened.
Twenty before the white pressure behind his eyes disappeared completely.
The flashlight had created sensation.
The drops erased it.
Grant's pulse slowed.
"Vernon."
"Yes?"
"If I ever recovered light perception, would I know?"
The doctor did not answer quickly enough.
"After injuries like yours, false sensations are common."
"That wasn't my question."
Hale closed his case.
"Grant, hope can be cruel. I watched what losing Caroline and Emma did to you. Don't let random nerve firing become another funeral."
Grant's jaw tightened.
Using their names was a mistake.
"I'll remember that."
After Hale left, Hannah entered wearing gloves.
Daniel had switched the bottle before Hale packed it.
The real vial sat inside an evidence bag.
Hannah held it toward the lamp.
No pharmacy label.
No dosage instructions.
Only a handwritten code.
VH-17.
Daniel searched the number.
Nothing.
Grant said, "Find Voss. Tonight."
Dr. Amelia Voss arrived after midnight.
She smelled faintly of rain and hospital soap.
When Hannah handed her the vial, Voss went completely still.
"Where did you get this?"
"Hale puts it in my eyes every week," Grant said.
Voss slowly removed her glasses.
"He shouldn't."
"Why?"
She turned toward him.
"Because I helped design the original compound fifteen years ago."
Grant leaned forward.
"What does it do?"
May you like
Voss looked at the vial again.
"It was abandoned because repeated exposure could suppress visual response."
