Chapter 3
I stared at the bottle in my hand.
“What do you mean, putting in your tea?”
Melissa rushed toward me.
“Give me that.”
I pulled it away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“It’s mine.”
“Then why is the label torn off?”
“It peeled.”
Mom shook her head.
“No.”
Melissa snapped, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mom’s voice trembled.
“I watched you crush those pills.”
My blood ran cold.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
I looked at my mother.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
She started crying again.
“You were in Houston for that conference.”
I remembered.
Three nights away.
Melissa had texted me constantly about Mom.
She said Mom had become unusually confused.
She sent me a video of Mom sitting at the breakfast table looking dazed.
I had called our family doctor from my hotel room.
He suggested we bring her in when I returned.
Melissa had sounded concerned.
Patient.
Loving.
The performance now made me sick.
“What happened after she drank the tea?”
Mom wiped her cheeks.
“I got dizzy.”
Melissa threw up her hands.
“She takes medication!”
“I take blood pressure medication. I know what it feels like.”
I looked at the bottle again.
There was enough of the original pharmacy label left to see part of a name.
Not Melissa.
Eric.
Her brother.
“What is this medication?”
Melissa said nothing.
I pulled out my phone.
“Daniel, don’t.”
I searched the pill code printed on one tablet.
The result made my stomach twist.
A prescription sedative.
Mom read my face.
“What is it?”
I didn’t want to tell her.
But Melissa already knew I had discovered it.
“It can cause drowsiness and confusion.”
Mom closed her eyes.
“Oh.”
That one sound destroyed me.
All those times I had questioned her memory.
All those moments she had looked at me and insisted she wasn’t confused.
I had made her feel like she couldn’t trust her own mind.
Because I trusted my wife more.
“Mom.”
She looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head.
“Not now.”
“I should have believed you.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have known.”
Melissa laughed harshly.
“Oh, please. Are we going to pretend Eleanor has been some perfect saint?”
I turned.
“What did you say?”
“She never wanted me here.”
Mom stared at her.
“I welcomed you into my family.”
“You tolerated me.”
“I paid for your wedding dress.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You cried when you saw it because your mother couldn’t be there.”
Melissa’s face tightened.
Mom continued.
“I sat with you the night before your wedding because you were scared Daniel would change his mind.”
“Stop.”
“I loved you.”
“I said stop!”
Melissa knocked a lamp from the dresser.
It crashed against the carpet.
Mom jumped.
I stepped between them again.
“Enough.”
Melissa pointed at my mother.
“She has always looked at me like I wasn’t good enough for you.”
Mom’s voice was quiet.
“I looked at you like my daughter.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, Melissa. That’s why this hurts.”
For the first time, Melissa had no immediate answer.
Then I saw something else among the documents on the floor.
A printed email.
I picked it up.
Melissa’s eyes widened.
“Put that down.”
The sender was Eric.
The subject line read:
DANIEL CANNOT FIND OUT.
My hands began shaking.
The email was six months old.
Eric had written that he needed more money.
Melissa replied beneath it.
I read only three lines before my vision blurred.
I told you I’m working on Eleanor.
Daniel already thinks she’s declining.
Once I get control of her finances, we’re fine.
I looked at Melissa.
“You planned this.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It is exactly like that.”
“Eric was in trouble.”
“So you decided to rob my mother.”
“He owed dangerous people.”
“That has nothing to do with her.”
“He’s my brother!”
“And she’s my mother!”
My voice thundered through the room.
Mom whispered, “Daniel.”
I forced myself to lower it.
Melissa’s tears started again.
“I was scared.”
“So was she.”
I pointed toward Mom.
“She was scared in her own home.”
“I never meant to hurt her.”
I held up her bruised wrist.
“Then what is this?”
“I lost my temper.”
“The pills?”
“I only wanted her calm.”
“The forged signature?”
“I was going to pay everything back.”
“The money?”
“I told you—Eric needed it.”
“The home equity loan with my fake signature?”
She looked away.
My chest tightened.
“Where did that money go?”
“It hasn’t funded yet.”
“Yet?”
She covered her face.
I stared at her.
“You were going to take a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“It was temporary.”
“With my signature.”
“You would have said no.”
“Of course I would have said no!”
Mom suddenly sat on the edge of the bed.
She looked weak.
I went to her.
“You okay?”
“I’m tired.”
That terrified me.
I called 911.
Melissa’s head snapped up.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting Mom checked.”
“You don’t need an ambulance.”
“You drugged her.”
“One time!”
Mom looked at her.
“More than once.”
Melissa stopped.
I stared at her.
“How many times?”
She said nothing.
“How many?”
Mom answered softly.
“I think four.”
I closed my eyes.
The dispatcher answered.
I gave our address.
Explained that my elderly mother may have unknowingly been given prescription medication.
Melissa began pacing.
“This is going to ruin everything.”
I almost couldn’t believe what I heard.
“Everything for who?”
“Our lives, Daniel.”
“You ruined our lives.”
“No. Your mother did.”
Mom looked like she had been slapped.
I stood.
“Get out.”
Melissa blinked.
“What?”
“Get out of this bedroom.”
“You can’t throw me out of my own house.”
“Then go downstairs.”
“I’m not leaving my belongings.”
“Nobody is touching them.”
She looked at the black bag.
Then the second phone.
Something in her eyes made me realize she was calculating.
I picked up both phones.
“What are you doing?”
“Preserving evidence.”
She lunged.
I stepped away.
“You have no right!”
“Call the police and tell them I took your secret phone from a bag containing forged bank documents and medication you admitted giving my mother.”
She stopped.
Ten minutes later, sirens approached.
Mom began trembling.
I crouched beside her.
“You’re safe.”
She whispered, “I don’t want people to think I’m stupid.”
My throat closed.
“Why would anyone think that?”
“Because I let this happen.”
“You didn’t let anything happen.”
“I saw pieces of it. I just kept hoping I was wrong.”
I took her hand.
“You’re not alone anymore.”
Paramedics entered the room.
Two police officers arrived with them.
Melissa immediately started talking.
“She’s elderly and confused. My husband is overreacting.”
One officer looked at Mom.
Then at the bruises.
Then at the prescription bottle in my hand.
His expression hardened.
“Ma’am, I need everybody to stop talking for a moment.”
Melissa fell silent.
The paramedics took Mom downstairs.
One examined her burns.
Thankfully, the food had cooled enough that the skin was red but not badly burned.
They still wanted her evaluated at the hospital because of the medication.
As they prepared the stretcher, Mom grabbed my sleeve.
“The recorder.”
“I have it.”
“No.”
She looked terrified.
“There are two.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“I hid the other one somewhere Melissa wouldn’t find it.”
Melissa was talking with the officer across the kitchen.
I lowered my voice.
“Where?”
Mom leaned close.
“Your father’s old workshop.”
My heart pounded.
“What’s on it?”
She looked toward Melissa.
“The night she thought I was asleep.”
“What happened?”
“She brought Eric here.”
I froze.
“Eric was in this house?”
“Twice.”
Melissa had told me he was still in Phoenix.
“When?”
“Last month.”
“What did they talk about?”
Mom squeezed my hand.
“Your company.”
I felt a new kind of fear.
“What about my company?”
“She told him you were about to sell it.”
My mouth went dry.
I had been negotiating privately to sell a minority stake in my construction firm.
Only three people knew.
My CFO.
My attorney.
Melissa.
No public announcement had been made.
I looked at my wife.
“What did you tell Eric?”
Her eyes darted toward me.
“What?”
“About my company.”
She went silent.
Mom whispered, “Daniel, go find the second recorder before she does.”
The police officer overheard.
“Second recorder?”
I explained quickly.
He told me not to touch anything else if I believed it could contain evidence.
Another officer went with me.
Dad’s workshop sat behind the garage.
I hadn’t entered it much since he died.
His old tools were still exactly where he left them.
The smell of wood and machine oil hit me the moment I opened the door.
For a second, grief almost stopped me.
Then I remembered why I was there.
Mom had always kept Dad’s small belongings in an old red toolbox.
I opened it.
Nothing.
I checked the cabinets.
Nothing.
The officer said, “Take your time.”
Then I saw Dad’s old radio on the shelf.
He had used it every Saturday morning.
I pulled it forward.
Behind it sat a small recorder wrapped in a handkerchief.
I looked at the officer.
“That’s it.”
He photographed it where it was.
Then he picked it up with gloves.
We returned to the kitchen.
Melissa saw the recorder.
Her face drained of color.
“That isn’t hers.”
The officer looked at her.
“You recognize it?”
She realized her mistake.
“No.”
“You just said it wasn’t hers.”
“I meant I’ve never seen it.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
Melissa looked at me.
“Daniel, please stop this.”
“Stop what?”
“Destroying us.”
I stared at her.
“You poured food on my mother.”
She whispered, “I was angry.”
“You drugged her.”
“She was anxious.”
“You stole from her.”
“I was desperate.”
“You forged my signature.”
She started crying.
“I can fix it.”
“No, Melissa.”
I looked at the officer.
“I want everything investigated.”
Melissa’s face changed instantly.
“You really want to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it destroys your company?”
I went still.
“What does that mean?”
She wiped her tears.
Suddenly she didn’t look broken anymore.
She looked angry.
“Ask your mother what she recorded.”
Mom stared at her.
Melissa continued.
“Ask her what Eric knows.”
“About what?”
Melissa stepped closer.
The officer told her to stay back.
She ignored me and looked directly into my eyes.
“You think I’m the only person in this family with secrets?”
My stomach tightened.
“What secret?”
She smiled without humor.
“Your father had one too.”
Mom went pale.
“Melissa, don’t.”
I turned to Mom.
“What is she talking about?”
My mother looked at the floor.
Melissa laughed.
“There it is.”
“Mom?”
She began trembling.
“I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Melissa spoke before she could.
“Your father didn’t leave you that company, Daniel.”
I stared at her.
May you like
“What?”
“He left it to someone else.”
