“Soon,” she said calmly. “I changed his heart medication three weeks ago. I’ve been crushing digoxin into his morning ginger smoothies. It looks like natural cardiac decline. One day, he’ll fall asleep in his chair and never wake up. Then we control everything.”
Frank put a hand on my shoulder, but I barely felt it.
For forty years, Margaret had slept beside me, prayed beside me, and kissed me goodnight. For the past month, she had looked me in the eyes every morning and handed me poison.
Then came the final blow.
Madison rolled her eyes. “God, Ethan is so gullible. He gets it from his father.”
Margaret smiled thinly.
“Charles?” she scoffed. “No. Ethan isn’t Charles’s son. He’s Daniel’s.”
Pastor Daniel Brooks.
My closest friend.
My golfing partner.
The man who baptized the boy I believed was mine.
The man who sat at my dinner table for thirty years and preached morality to my family.
A violent sound rose in my throat. I lunged toward the monitor, but Frank grabbed me.
“Charles, stop,” he hissed. “If you destroy this, you destroy your only leverage. If you go home screaming, she’ll say the poison is making you hallucinate. She’ll have you locked away, and she will win.”
He was right.
