Chapter 2 - THE BOTTLE WASN’T MILK
Frank spoke before I could.
“Daniel, we found part of the missing shipment.”
I looked through the security monitor at Maya.
She was still standing in my staff kitchen, holding the baby bottle against her chest.
“Where?”
“That’s the problem. It never left Manhattan.”
I straightened.
“The tracking tags say Pier Forty-Seven. The physical scanners say twelve cases were transferred to a private medical courier near Canal Street.”
“Who authorized it?”
“Sam Miller’s code.”
My jaw tightened.
Sam had supervised logistics for Foster Meridian Shipping for eight years.
He had access to nearly everything moving through my refrigerated warehouses.
“How much are we talking about?”
“At wholesale? Maybe six hundred thousand. Street value through private clinics could be two or three times that.”
“And the specialty pharmacy?”
Frank hesitated.
“Northbridge Specialty Care.”
The exact pharmacy listed on Maya’s medical bills.
I looked back at the screen.
“Get me everything on Northbridge.”
“Already doing it.”
“And Frank?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell Sam we’re investigating.”
I ended the call.
For several seconds, I watched Maya.
Then she unscrewed the cap from the baby bottle.
The liquid inside was pale.
Cloudy.
Definitely not ordinary milk.
She pulled a small syringe from her pocket.
That was enough.
I left the study.
Maya nearly dropped the bottle when I entered the kitchen.
“Mr. Foster.”
Her face went white.
“What’s in the bottle?”
She immediately pushed it behind her back.
“Nothing.”
“I heard you talking in the bathroom.”
The shame that crossed her face was immediate.
I regretted saying it that way.
“Maya, I’m not asking because you owe me an explanation about your bills.”
She stared at me.
“I’m asking because something may be wrong with the pharmacy providing Lily’s medication.”
Her breathing changed.
That told me more than any answer could.
“What’s in the bottle?”
She looked toward the hallway.
Then whispered, “It’s Lily’s.”
“What is it?”
“Medicine.”
“In a baby bottle?”
Her eyes filled.
“They told me it was safer.”
“Who told you?”
“The pharmacy.”
My stomach tightened.
“Northbridge?”
She nodded.
I stepped closer.
“Do not give that to Lily.”
Maya clutched the bottle.
“You don’t understand. She missed yesterday’s treatment. Her breathing got bad last night. This is the only dose I have.”
“Then we get another dose.”
“They won’t give me one.”
“I will.”
“You can’t just—”
“Maya.”
She stopped.
“I can.”
I took out my phone and called the private pediatric service used by several executives in my building.
Money did what money usually did.
Within twenty minutes, a physician was on the way to Maya’s apartment in Queens with emergency respiratory medication from an independent hospital pharmacy.
Maya stared at me as though I had performed magic.
I hated that.
It wasn’t magic.
It was access.
Access I had spent my entire life taking for granted.
“What exactly did Northbridge tell you?” I asked.
She slowly lowered herself into a kitchen chair.
Three months earlier, Lily’s insurance had changed its authorization rules.
The medication she needed cost thousands each month.
Northbridge told Maya her co-pay and previous balance had to be cleared before the next shipment.
Then a pharmacy employee named Kevin offered another option.
A “compassion program.”
No paperwork.
Cash only.
Maya paid what she could.
In exchange, the pharmacy sometimes gave her doses in unmarked containers.
“Why the baby bottle?”
“They said the medicine was light-sensitive and the bottle was temporary.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know that now.”
Her voice broke.
“But when your child is struggling to breathe at two in the morning, you stop asking whether things make sense.”
That sentence stayed with me.
“What else did they ask you to do?”
She froze.
There it was.
The part she didn’t want to tell me.
“Maya.”
“They asked me to pick things up.”
“What things?”
“Cooler bags.”
My blood turned cold.
“From where?”
“Sometimes an apartment lobby. Sometimes a loading dock.”
“And then?”
“I left them behind Northbridge.”
“How many times?”
“Four.”
I sat across from her.
“You were moving stolen medication.”
Her face collapsed.
“No.”
“I don’t think you knew.”
“No.”
“I believe you.”
She started crying anyway.
“I thought it was paperwork. Samples. I swear to God, Mr. Foster, I never opened them.”
“Did they pay you?”
“No.”
“Then why do it?”
Her voice dropped to almost nothing.
“Because Kevin said if I helped, he could make Lily’s balance disappear.”
The anger that moved through me was different from business anger.
Business anger was controlled.
Useful.
This was not.
Someone had looked at a frightened mother with a sick child and found a way to turn her desperation into labor.
Worse, they were using medicine intended for sick children to do it.
My phone buzzed.
Frank.
He sent a photograph.
A security still from Pier Forty-Seven.
One of the stolen cooler cases was being loaded into a delivery van.
Standing beside it was Sam Miller.
And next to Sam—
Ryan Callaway.
My oldest associate.
The man I had asked less than an hour earlier to investigate Maya.
I looked toward the kitchen entrance.
Suddenly, the penthouse didn’t feel private anymore.
“Where is Lily right now?” I asked.
“With my mother.”
“Address?”
Maya looked alarmed.
“Why?”
“Because if Ryan knows I requested your file, he knows I’m interested in you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I yet.”
I called Frank.
“Send two men to Maya’s mother’s apartment.”
Maya stood.
“What men?”
“Security.”
“No. Absolutely not. My mother will panic.”
“She can panic while Lily is protected.”
Maya’s eyes widened.
“You think someone would hurt my daughter?”
“I think people stealing millions of dollars in pediatric medicine probably don’t have strong moral boundaries.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Then the penthouse intercom sounded.
My doorman.
“Mr. Foster?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a delivery for Ms. Santos.”
Maya looked at me.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“What kind of delivery?”
The doorman hesitated.
“Medical.”
I went still.
“Do not let him upstairs.”
A pause.
“Sir, he already entered the service elevator.”
I turned toward the kitchen monitor.
The service elevator indicator was climbing.
Thirty-one.
Thirty-two.
Thirty-three.
My penthouse was on thirty-seven.
Maya stepped closer to me.
“Daniel…”
It was the first time she had used my first name.
The elevator reached thirty-six.
I pushed her behind the marble island.
“Stay down.”
“What are you doing?”
I opened the drawer beneath the wine cabinet where I kept a legal handgun.
Her eyes widened.
The elevator chimed.
The doors opened.
A man in a Northbridge pharmacy jacket walked into my service hallway carrying a white insulated case.
He saw me.
Stopped.
Then slowly smiled.
“Delivery for Maya Santos.”
I kept my hand hidden beside my leg.
“What’s inside?”
“Medicine.”
“For whom?”
His smile widened.
“Her daughter.”
Maya whispered behind me.
“That’s Kevin.”
Kevin looked toward her voice.
Then back at me.
“You really shouldn’t have gotten involved, Mr. Foster.”
That was when I knew this was no billing dispute.
May you like
And the man standing in my home had not come to deliver medicine.
He had come to make sure Maya never explained what was really inside those cooler bags.
