2:20 p.m.
Tracks red block approximately six inches.
The next page showed the same pattern.
Then the next.
Jonathan read without speaking.
Clara watched anger arrive on his face in stages.
First disbelief.
Then confusion.
Then the terrible realization that disbelief had become harder to defend than the evidence in front of him.
He pressed the call button beside the nursery door.
The butler appeared less than a minute later.
He stopped when he saw Jonathan holding the amber bottle.
For the first time since Clara had entered the Pierce mansion, the older man lost his practiced calm.
“Sir.”
Jonathan raised the bottle.
“What is this?”
The butler’s gaze flickered toward Clara.
She saw accusation there immediately.
“The child’s eye medication.”
“Why is it expired?”
The butler hesitated.
“It is the same medication that has always been used.”
“That does not answer the question.”
Silence filled the room.
Ryder shifted against Clara’s shoulder.
The butler finally said, “There were standing instructions after Mrs.
Pierce died.
His eyes were extremely sensitive.
The drops reduced his reaction to light.”
Jonathan stared at him.
“Standing instructions from when?”
“From the period after the accident.”
“How long ago was this bottle opened?”
Another pause.
“I cannot say precisely.”
Jonathan’s voice dropped.
“Then you should not have put it in my son’s eyes this morning.”
The butler straightened.
“With respect, sir, the child has always been considered blind.
The medication was part of his established care.”
Clara felt Jonathan go still.
“Considered?” he repeated.
The butler seemed to realize too late what he had said.
Jonathan turned toward Clara.
She handed Ryder to him.
For a moment Jonathan did not seem to know how to hold his own child.
Then Ryder settled against his chest.
Jonathan moved slowly toward the window.
Sunlight touched the side of his face.
Ryder blinked.
Jonathan lifted one hand between them.
His son watched it.
Then Ryder reached forward and caught one of his father’s fingers.
Jonathan closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the grief in his face was almost unbearable to witness.
“My wife died,” he said quietly, not looking at anyone.
