Chapter 2 - THE GREEN STAIN ON THE BOTTLE Emergency lights came on within seconds.
The foxglove remained beside the window.
The gold ribbon remained around the pot.
The card was gone.
Arturo ordered the nursery sealed. Security guards blocked both exits while doctors stabilized Julián. No guest, servant, or physician was permitted to leave.
León sat against the bathroom wall with a split lip where one guard had forced him down. He watched Arturo move among the medical team like a man searching for someone to punish.
No one thanked León.
Not yet.
A female toxicologist named Dr. Rebecca Shaw examined the baby bottle through protective gloves. She scraped the green residue into a specimen tube and smelled the formula.
“This needs immediate laboratory analysis.”
Dr. Charles Mercer, the senior physician who had dismissed León’s warning, folded his arms.
“The infant may have a congenital cardiac condition. We should not build a criminal theory around a decorative plant.”
León stood.
“Then why did he improve after the charcoal?”
Mercer stared at him.
“You are not a physician.”
“No. I’m the only person who noticed what was killing him.”
Arturo looked sharply between them.
Dr. Shaw stopped the argument.
“Charcoal alone does not prove foxglove poisoning. But the symptoms are consistent with a cardiac toxin. Until the results return, no one touches the plant, bottle, formula, or feeding equipment.”
Arturo turned toward Florence Bell, the nursery supervisor.
“Who prepared the bottle?”
Florence’s hands trembled.
“I did.”
“Who brought the formula?”
“The kitchen sent it upstairs.”
“Who warmed it?”
“I did.”
“Who touched it after that?”
Florence looked around the packed room.
“Almost anyone could have.”
Julián’s medical crisis had begun during a family board dinner downstairs. When his monitor sounded, relatives, employees, and physicians rushed into the nursery. The room became crowded before anyone understood what had happened.
The missing card could now be inside any pocket.
Security collected every phone and ordered guests through metal detectors. No card appeared.
Dr. Shaw inspected the foxglove.
Several leaves had been cut recently.
One stem leaked fresh sap.
“It was harvested today,” she said.
Arturo’s gaze shifted to León.
“You knew exactly what it was.”
“My mother grew medicinal plants.”
“Your mother also believed this estate belonged to her.”
León’s face hardened.
“My mother is dead.”
A painful silence followed.
León was Arturo’s nephew, the son of his younger sister Sofia. After Sofia died in a greenhouse fire two years earlier, León came to live in a distant wing of the estate.
Arturo provided food, schooling, and security.
He did not provide affection.
He believed Sofia had tried to expose private family finances and disgrace the Santillán name. León believed Arturo had abandoned her when she needed him.
Now that resentment made León an easy suspect.
Dr. Mercer stepped closer to Arturo.
“The boy may understand plant toxins. He had access to the grounds. And if Julián dies, León becomes the closest male heir.”
Arturo stared at his nephew.
León felt every guard in the room shift toward him.
Then Dr. Shaw lifted the bottle.
“The green residue contains human skin cells.”
“Whose?” Arturo demanded.
“We’ll need DNA testing.”
She pointed toward the bottle nipple.
Someone had deliberately painted foxglove sap around the area that entered Julián’s mouth.
This was no accident.
The poisoner had expected the plant to remain unnoticed beside the window.
León looked toward the empty gold ribbon.
“Whoever did this wanted me to recognize it.”
Arturo frowned.
“Why?”
“To make me run into the room.”
León glanced at the guards who had seized him and the doctors who had doubted him.
May you like
“They wanted everyone to see the angry nephew standing beside the poison.”
👉 The foxglove may have been placed not only to kill Julián, but to frame León as the resentful heir who understood exactly how it worked.
