Page 26 of Lethal Game

"It's okay," she said quickly. "He's my friend. You can speak freely."

"Very well. Your mother's blood work came back with several anomalies. Her liver enzymes are elevated, and so is her white blood cell count. We saw increases in these numbers when she was first admitted, and then they went down, only to reappear today."

She stared at him in bewilderment as he continued talking about her mother's blood work, none of the lab results making sense. "I don't understand. Why would her numbers be jumping around so much?"

He gave her a long look. "I have a theory. That's all it is right now, a theory. I need to do more research."

"What's your theory?" she asked, her body tensing.

The doctor glanced at Jason, then back at her. "I think your mother is being poisoned."

CHAPTER SIX

Alisa gasped, his words echoing around her head in a confusing blur. "Are you serious?"

"I'm afraid so," Dr. Grayson replied gravely.

"Her condition has been going on for ten days," she said, trying to make sense of what he'd just said.

"And it gets better, then worse, as if she's being repeatedly dosed."

"That's true. When she first came into the hospital, she was in terrible shape, but with IV fluids and rest, she got better. You're saying she didn't get better because of those things…"

"The fluids may have helped, but perhaps it was also because of a lack of exposure to the toxin."

"What kind of poison are you talking about?" Jason asked. "I'm not just Alisa's friend; I'm also an FBI agent. If her mother is being poisoned, we need to find out who's doing it and how."

"It could be something she inhaled or ingested," Dr. Grayson said, his tone cautious. "Given how her symptoms have fluctuated, I'd suspect it's something introduced into her environment—food, drink, maybe even something in the air. I'd like to move her out of this room, restrict visitor access, and ensure that anything she's consuming has been kept in sterile conditions."

"Oh, my God," she murmured. She turned away from the doctor and opened her mother's door. Her mother was asleep in her bed, so she stepped quietly into the room, searching for contaminants.

Dr. Grayson and Jason came in behind her.

"The flowers," Jason said sharply. "Who brought those?"

"Henry brought the vase on the dresser. I don't know who brought the other one next to the bed. My mother said it was there when she woke up yesterday. We both assumed it was from my father." She started forward, but Jason called her back.

"Don't touch anything," he said. "What about food? Has she eaten anything from outside the hospital?"

"I don't know. She hasn't been hungry. I brought her cookies yesterday, but she only took one bite. Henry brought her the chocolates last night, but I'm not sure if she ate one."

"Let's go into the hall," Jason said.

When the door closed behind them, she turned to the doctor. "What do we do in terms of treatment?"

"I'll get more insight into that after we get the results of her next blood work. In the meantime, I want to flush her system out and hydrate her to get rid of the toxins as soon as possible. I think some have already left her system, which is why her numbers have improved. Whatever she was given was not enough to…" His voice faded away.

"Kill her?" she finished, feeling shocked that someone could want to kill her mother, to kill her.

"Yes," he replied grimly.

"So, if we make sure she doesn't eat anything or breathe anything that could be toxic, she should recover."

"I believe so, but I have to caution you not to get too far ahead, Alisa. I'll run another blood panel later today and see where her numbers are. In the meantime, I think we should take steps to isolate her and control her environment. I want to move her to the sixth floor, where we have more stringent protocols in place."

The sixth floor was where they treated highly infectious patients and also VIPs who needed more security. All rooms were cleaned to a higher level of standards, and the nursing staff worked under a stricter protocol for food delivery and visitor access. "That's a good idea," she said. "How soon can we do that?"

"It will probably take about twenty minutes to ready the room, but I'll make it happen as soon as possible," he said.

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