Chapter 3 - The Twins Improved Once We Removed Them From the Mansion, but One New Symptom Exposed a Far Bigger ExperimentThree days passed.
The twins improved.
Not dramatically.
But enough.
Jacob could walk farther.
Jonah was eating more.
Their headaches decreased.
Nathan started believing we had found the answer.
Then Jacob woke screaming.
"Mom!"
I ran into the room.
He was clutching his head.
Jonah was beside him.
"Jacob."
He pointed toward the ceiling.
"She's here."
"Who?"
"Mommy."
The twins' mother had died two years earlier.
I had seen her photographs.
Beautiful woman.
Dark hair.
Gentle smile.
Nathan rarely spoke about her.
I sat beside Jacob.
"Tell me."
He shook.
"Mommy told us not to sleep upstairs."
Nathan entered.
His face changed when he heard.
"What did he say?"
I explained.
Nathan sat down.
"What did your mother look like?"
Jacob described her.
Then said:
"She smelled like roses."
Jonah nodded.
"She told us the vents were bad."
I looked at Nathan.
He went pale.
"Did your mother ever tell you that before?"
"No."
Nathan sat silently.
His wife's death had been ruled an accidental overdose.
But if she had known about the vents...
Maybe she had been warning him.
Maybe she had discovered something.
I asked Nathan for her medical records.
He hesitated.
"Why?"
"If she had symptoms before her death, they might match the boys."
He brought the file.
Fatigue.
Headaches.
Muscle weakness.
Memory problems.
Exactly the same progression.
I looked up.
"The boys didn't suddenly develop an illness after their mother died."
Nathan swallowed.
"They inherited something?"
"Maybe."
The toxicologist reviewed the old records.
His conclusion was shocking.
Nathan's wife had been exposed to the same chemical.
But she had been exposed at low levels for much longer.
Her death might not have been an overdose.
It might have been chronic poisoning.
Nathan stared at the report.
"Who would have access to her?"
"Everyone in the house."
"Who handled her medication?"
"The household nurse."
"Who?"
"Patricia Lane."
She had worked with the family for fifteen years.
I asked:
"Where is she?"
Nathan called security.
"She left the house three months after my wife's death."
"Where did she go?"
"No one knows."
That night, Nathan's sister Valeria came to the guesthouse.
She looked worried.
"I heard about the boys."
Nathan immediately said:
"Don't."
She stopped.
"You think I did it."
"I think I don't know."
She looked at me.
"You found the chemical?"
"Yes."
"I knew it."
"What?"
"Your father used to keep pesticides in the old greenhouse."
Nathan frowned.
"My father died."
"I know."
"Why would that matter?"
Valeria hesitated.
"Because the greenhouse was connected to the ventilation system."
The room went silent.
"How?"
"Your father built the mansion."
Nathan stared.
"He designed the air circulation."
I felt cold.
"Who else knew?"
Valeria looked at me.
"The family."
She left.
Nathan and I exchanged a glance.
Someone had built the mansion with hidden access to the ventilation system.
That meant the poison could have been delivered for years.
Not months.
Potentially decades.
The twins might not be the first victims.
We searched old records.
Nathan's mother.
His father.
His wife.
Employees.
All had unexplained illnesses.
All had lived in the mansion.
Then I found something.
A maintenance blueprint.
The ventilation line from the greenhouse connected directly to the twins' bedrooms.
Nathan stared.
"Why would my father design it that way?"
"For temperature control."
"Maybe."
I pointed.
"There is another chamber."
He frowned.
"What chamber?"
"Here."
The blueprint showed an unused room behind the walls.
"That's impossible."
"Open the wall."
Security found the hidden door.
Inside was a small laboratory.
Dusty.
Abandoned.
But not empty.
There were shelves.
Old glass containers.
Medical notes.
And a chair.
The same type used in medical treatment rooms.
On the wall was one sentence scratched into the paint:
THE BOYS WERE NOT THE FIRST.
Nathan went completely still.
May you like
Then we heard a noise behind us.
Someone had locked the door from outside.
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