She shook her head slowly.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “Another year, maybe eighteen months, and this could have caused permanent damage or sudden cardiac arrest. We need to flush your system and monitor you closely over the next few months.”
“Can you document everything for legal purposes?” I asked.
Her eyes met mine, steady.
“I can,” she said. “And I will.”
Playing normal at home got harder.
The first morning I didn’t take the pills, Sophia noticed.
“You forgot your vitamins,” she said at breakfast, sliding the bottle toward me. Sunlight slanted through the kitchen windows, catching the steam from our coffee mugs.
“I took them upstairs already,” I lied.
Her eyes lingered on me a moment too long.
“Really?” she said. “I could’ve sworn the bottle was full yesterday.”
My heart rate spiked. I picked up a piece of toast, forced myself to chew casually.
“I’ve been taking two a day,” I said. “Doctor said my iron was low.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“You saw a doctor?” she asked. “When?”
“Last week,” I said. “Annual checkup.”
Another lie. Another card on the wobbling house I was building.
“You didn’t mention it,” she said lightly.
“Didn’t seem important,” I replied. “Everything’s fine.”
That afternoon, on the surveillance feed Sam had installed, I watched Sophia in the kitchen. She opened the cabinet, took down the vitamin bottle, and counted the pills.
She was checking my story.
Sam installed the cameras on a Wednesday, working with the deliberate care of a man who has placed equipment in hostile environments before. He disguised them as smoke detectors, thermostat covers, little black dots that disappeared into the corners of rooms.
There was a camera in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in our bedroom, one in my study. Tiny audio pickups in each major room. Everything fed into a secure system only Sam and I could access.
“We’re looking for conversations,” Sam explained. “Admissions. Plans. Anything that proves intent.”
The first week yielded nothing.
Sophia was careful. She always made calls about money or “business” out on the back patio or in her car. Dylan barely visited at all.
I was the one slipping, catching myself staring at Sophia across the dinner table, trying to reconcile the woman who laughed at my jokes with the woman who had quietly been reshaping my death certificate.
“You’ve been distant lately,” she said one evening over grilled salmon and salad. “Is something bothering you?”
“Just thinking about Will,” I said. It was true. “Missing him.”
“I know, honey. I’m sorry.” She reached across the table and took my hand, her thumb rubbing small circles on my knuckles. “But you have me. You’re not alone.”
I forced a smile. “I know.”
That night she brought me tea.
“You look tired,” she said at my bedroom door, holding the steaming mug. “This will help you sleep.”
I waited until she went back downstairs, then poured the tea into the plant by my bed. The plant died three days later.
The breakthrough came on day seventeen of surveillance.
I’d told Sophia I was going to play golf at our country club—a place in Bellevue where retired tech guys and executives bragged about handicaps and stock portfolios. Instead, I was in a surveillance van two blocks from my house, sitting beside Sam, watching my own home on a bank of monitors.
At 2:00 p.m., Dylan’s car pulled into the driveway. It was unusual; he never visited midweek.
We watched him let himself in with his own key—something I hadn’t known he had.
On screen, Sophia came down the stairs.
“Dylan, what are you doing here?” she asked.
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