Beneath The Orange Sunset ✔️

26

~26~

Was that why she fired him? Because he was supposedly an intruder? And will possibly ruin her plans if he continued staying around Maxime. Why was Emile suddenly getting cold feet?

Several thoughts roved through Samuel's head as he drove down the lane leading to his neighborhood.
He parked his car in the usual spot a few blocks down his house. He will just take a five minute walk down. The sidewalks were completely empty and lonely, unlike most warm nights when couples walked hand in hand and enjoyed blissful moments together.

The darkness at this time was intimidating. And the weather was unusually cold. At the same time Samuel felt sick at heart. He put both his hands in his jacket pocket to wade off the cold.

Would he have to surrender his life to save Maxime. Would he have to do much more than that?

Would he?

The results of Maxime's blood test had been sent to Joelene's address. From the phone call he had with his sister on his drive back, the doctor had confirmed that Maxime was indeed ingesting extreme amounts of a harmful drug on a daily basis. Not only from his medication, but also from his meals.

Joelene further explained that from the test results, there were traces of the toxic drug, Warfarin in his blood.

Samuel knew warfarin as an anticoagulant drug which reduces the formation of blood clot in stroke or heart attack patients.

No wonder Maxime coughed up blood and experienced terrible nose bleeds. Warfarin causes uncontrollable bleeding when taken in excess and can be severe and life threatening.

Life threatening.

It made Samuel wonder about Antoine and Emile's escapades the past few days, but as he had always noticed, Emile was never at home between 8pm and 7am.

Samuel had remained speechless as he listened to Joelene's shaky voice on the phone. She expressed more sympathy towards the sick heir and finally encouraged him to do his best to save Maxime.

She will be devasted when she finds out that he is no longer Maxime's nurse.

As he strode closer towards his house, he was startled by a silly cat nibbling away on a dead rat by the side of the road. The security lights shone dimly on the porch of his apartment.

Samuel felt uneasy. Was it the neighborhood that was too quiet or was it the feeling of having a bad day? He missed Maxime, he must admit. He took his phone out of his pocket and speed dialed his number on impulse but on a second thought he disconnected the call. The poor boy needed his rest. He's been through a lot lately.

Samuel stepped up to his front door and noticed something different. He reached his hand to hold the door knob but the door was unlocked. It was left ajar.

He slowly pushed it wide open and stepped in. How did the door unlatch itself from the hinges? Samuel wondered. It was hot and dank in the small sitting room compared to the chills outside. He made to take another step when his leg struck a chair.

Something was off.

He groped about the wall beside him and switched on the lights. His gaze froze in mid air. Then the words of Rochelle Phillipe came ringing.

'Beware of the Lacroix. Make sure you don't step on their toes. They've got claws for feet and fangs for teeth.'

'You are really exaggerating this things. The Lacroix are way too civilised to do... evil like you're suggesting.'