Chapter 6 - The Count
The silence in the living room stretched until the only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
Ryan looked at my father, then back at Nurse Hannah, searching for an escape route that wasn't there.
"It's downstairs in my workshop," Ryan said, trying to force a light chuckle. "I keep all controlled medications under lock and key for child safety purposes."
"Your daughter is eight days old, Mr. Mercer," Nurse Hannah replied, her professional warmth completely vanishing.
"She cannot crawl to a medicine cabinet. Please retrieve the bottle immediately. State protocol requires me to physically verify all Schedule II narcotics during post-operative home visits."
Dad didn't wait for Ryan to move.
"I'll walk down with you to unlock it, son," Dad said, placing a heavy, inescapable hand on Ryan’s shoulder.
Ryan's jaw tightened until the muscle twitched beneath his skin.
He unclipped Iris’s baby wrap, handing our daughter gently to me on the sofa.
Then he turned and walked toward the basement door, with my father trailing two inches behind him like an armed shadow.
A minute later, the dull metallic clang of the toolbox opening echoed up through the floorboards.
Ryan returned to the living room first, holding the amber plastic pharmacy bottle between his thumb and forefinger as if it were contaminated with poison.
Dad followed, standing by the archway with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed on the back of Ryan’s neck.
Ryan placed the bottle onto the coffee table beside Nurse Hannah’s medical kit.
"As you can see, the medication is completely accounted for," Ryan said smoothly, crossing his arms.
"I have been tracking each dose in an administrative log to ensure Megan doesn't develop an unhealthy dependence."
Nurse Hannah picked up the amber vial.
She read the pharmacy label out loud:
"Megan Mercer. Oxycodone 5mg. Quantity: 30 tablets. Dispensed on June 5th, 2026. Directions: Take 1 to 2 tablets every 4 to 6 hours as needed for severe post-surgical pain."
Hannah pressed down on the child-proof cap, twisted it, and tipped the contents onto a sterile white paper tray on the table.
The small white tablets clattered across the paper.
Hannah used a stainless-steel spatula to separate the pills into neat rows of five.
One, two, three, four, five.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Twenty-five.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-nine.
Thirty.
Nurse Hannah stopped.
She recounted them slowly, tapping each pill with the metal spatula.
There were thirty pills on the tray.
Exactly thirty.
Not a single tablet had been dispensed from that bottle since the pharmacy filled it six days ago.
Hannah looked up from the tray, her eyes locking onto Ryan with utter disbelief and mounting professional outrage.
"Mr. Mercer," Nurse Hannah said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.
"You told me you were administering doses according to an administrative log."
Ryan swallowed hard, his skin flushing an ugly, blotchy red.
"I... I gave her two tablets on Saturday," Ryan stammered, his confident facade crumbling into terrified chaos.
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"These thirty tablets are factory sealed by weight, Mr. Mercer," Hannah said, pointing to the unbroken pharmacy count.
"If there are thirty pills on this tray, then what exactly have you been feeding this recovering surgical patient for the last six days?"
