part 2 At 2 a.m., trapped in my office during another endless work night..008

Part 2

And then she started laughing.

Not loudly. Not wildly. Not the laugh of someone caught doing something insane.

It was worse than that.

It was small.

Satisfied.

Like she had just placed the final piece in a game nobody else knew they were playing.

On the screen, my mother held the unlabeled pill bottle between two manicured fingers and shook it once beside Sophie’s face. The soft rattle of capsules came through my phone speaker like bones in a jar.

“Do you know what this is?” Penelope asked.

Sophie’s eyes opened slowly. Fear moved across her face, but not surprise.