“Have a look at the desk drawer, my dear,” the attorney chuckled softly. “The one on the right.”
With a trembling left hand, I pulled open the small wooden drawer on the right side of the desk. Resting inside, right on top of a stack of blank paper, was a small, empty prescription bottle.
The label bore my name. The drug was a powerful beta-blocker—the exact medication that could cause a tired heart to simply stop.
“Twenty minutes,” the attorney said, and the line went dead.
I stood there, paralyzed, looking at the bottle, then at the heavy iron key from the box. The mansion was silent, but outside, the shadows of the evening were lengthening, and the sound of a car engine idling at the edge of the long driveway began to echo through the walls…
