Entrapped

44 Alarming news

Chloe points at the champagne glasses already filled at everyone's plate and lifts her glass.

"Before we eat, let's drink a toast on the speedy, full recovery of Lyle and Zoey and that those pigs that attacked them, will soon meet their fate."

They all clink glasses and mumble something in affirmation of Chloe's words and she continues: "Isaac looked after them in the hospital. He is a medical doctor. He arrived unexpectedly on the smallholding the same morning I went in search of Lyle and Zoey."

Isaac laughs. "Yes, I will never forget that first day when I opened my eyes and there she stood! She had a very cocky attitude right from the start. Her whole little body talked with vehemently!"

Chloe smiles. "He walked into my place under the impression that the caretaker had left the door open for him while I was on the phone with Leo in my bedroom. Well, that was his excuse – I wonder how he could have missed my Cooper parked in front – but in any case, he wanted to punish me. for carelessly leaving the door wide open. He dropped his box of medical books on the coffee table with a loud bang just as I had finished my phone call and with his eyes closed he sat down on the sofa and waited for me. When I confronted him, he played innocent. He was a teaser right from day one."

Hayley laughs. "It seems you are good at pulling someone's leg, Doctor Horn."

Isaac frowns. "Please, leave my title. I am now amongst friends, people. Just call me Isaac, okay?"

Hunter has finished most of his meal and points with his knife at the garden. "Isaac, there is a Monkshood in there. Has Chloe shown you?"

Isaac's smile vanishes. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it, but she confirmed it."

Hunter continues: "Clea and Tony had the habit of drinking whiskey and water before they went to bed, but each had his or her own bottle because they preferred different kinds of whiskey. They told me long ago when we had a discussion about whiskey. I enjoy my Irish Jameson but Clea relished her single grain Scotch 18 year old Glenfiddich. Tony, however, was a bourbon fan. He always said he could taste the maize in it. Jim Beam Black Label was his favorite with the wooden taste of the wood well absorbed. He always joked that it tasted like the Wild West.

"Doctor, don't you think it sounds suspicious? They each enjoy their whiskey out of their own bottles that they kept in their bedroom and they only drank a tot before they went to sleep and then Tony died in his sleep, just like Clea, and just after his funeral there was an onslaught on the lives of Lyle and Zoey disguised in what must have been perceived as a simple road accident?"

Isaac nods. "Hunter, to tell you the truth; when I saw that plant I began to wonder about the same thing and I wanted to discuss it with you later on. I did not know you were aware of the plant. Now that you have informed me that they enjoyed their whiskey from their own bottles, I get even more suspicious."

Hunter nods. "Doctor, please tell all of us here why Monkshood is so special and why we are wondering."

Isaac's eyes wander over Chloe and Lyle and it is as if he hesitates and doesn't want to comply with Hunter's request. An uncomfortable silence follows while all of them are looking anxiously at him.

Eventually he starts to explain concisely: "We are talking about Aconitum, but it has many names, for example Aconite, Monkshood, Devil's helmet or Queen of Poisons. Most of the more or less 250 species are extremely poisonous and one must handle it very carefully with gloves because it can poison you through your skin. There are people that use the poison for their arrows and the Chinese, for example, used it during their wars. Some island inhabitants hunted whales with it by using a man with a spear attached to a rope on a kayak with the point dubbed into the poison. When he speared the whale, the poison paralyzed the fish so it drowned."