Chapter 3 - THE RESULT I COULDN’T EXPLAIN AWAY
I told Julian I was staying with my sister for two nights.
That was a lie.
My sister Tess lived in La Mesa, but I did not go there.
Not yet.
If Julian or Eleanor realized how seriously I was taking Chloe’s warning, I believed whatever happened in that breakfast room would stop.
I needed to know whether it had happened at all.
I returned to Eleanor’s house shortly before five.
Nobody was home.
I found the camera in a moving box in the guest suite.
It was an ordinary pet camera we had bought when Chloe begged us to adopt a rescue terrier named Baxter.
I placed it on a bookshelf facing the breakfast table.
There was no dramatic spy equipment.
No elaborate hiding place.
Eleanor herself had seen the camera dozens of times in our Kensington house.
I plugged it in behind a row of cookbooks and checked the view from my phone.
Silver tea service.
Breakfast table.
Pantry door.
Enough.
I drove to Tess’s house afterward.
The moment she saw my face, she stopped asking why I had arrived without warning.
“What happened?”
I told her.
Not all at once.
The words sounded crazier each time I said them.
White powder.
Tea.
Sedating medication.
Memory gaps.
Julian’s strange reaction.
Tess listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she said, “Where’s Chloe?”
“At after-school program. Julian thinks I’m picking her up.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re bringing her here.”
It was not a question.
Tess had spent fifteen years as an elementary-school principal. She was not easily alarmed.
That frightened me more.
We picked Chloe up together.
She climbed into the back seat and looked at Tess.
“Are we having a sleepover?”
“Yes,” I said.
Her face brightened for one second.
Then she looked at me.
“Is it because of Grandma?”
I waited until we were inside Tess’s house.
Then I sat with Chloe on the sofa.
“I need you to tell me exactly what you saw.”
Tess stayed in the kitchen where Chloe could see her but not feel surrounded.
Chloe twisted a thread on her yellow cardigan.
“Grandma gets the jar from the cabinet above the coffee.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Once?”
She shook her head.
“More.”
“Did you ever see what she put it in?”
“Your tea.”
“Anyone else’s?”
“No.”
My mouth went dry.
“Did Grandma tell you what it was?”
“No.”
“Did Daddy?”
Chloe looked at me.
That pause lasted perhaps two seconds.
It felt much longer.
“What did Daddy say?”
“He said Grandma gives you grown-up medicine because you don’t sleep.”
“When did he say that?”
“When I asked why I couldn’t have your tea.”
I looked toward Tess.
She had gone completely still.
Chloe continued.
“I asked if I could taste it because it smelled like peach.”
“And Daddy said no?”
“He got mad.”
“How mad?”
“He said, ‘Never touch Mommy’s tea.’”
I pulled Chloe against me.
I wanted to ask twenty more questions.
I stopped myself.
She was eight.
She was my daughter, not my investigator.
That evening Julian arrived at Tess’s house.
Tess met him at the door.
I heard his voice from the living room.
“Nora needs to come home.”
“She doesn’t.”
“This is between my wife and me.”
Tess said, “Then your wife can decide where she sleeps.”
He asked to see Chloe.
I walked to the entryway.
“You can say goodnight from here.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You’re keeping my daughter from me now?”
“I’m keeping her with me tonight.”
“Because she told some story about tea?”
“Because a hospital found a sedating medication in my system.”
His face lost color.
Not much.
Enough.
I watched him carefully.
“A medication I did not take.”
Julian looked past me toward Tess.
Then back.
“We need to talk privately.”
“No.”
“Nora.”
“No.”
He lowered his voice.
“My mother takes prescription sleep medication.”
The information struck me strangely.
“How do you know what they found?”
Julian blinked.
I had not told him what category of drug the doctor suspected.
I had only said a sedating medication.
He recovered.
“You just said it.”
“No. You mentioned your mother’s prescription.”
“That’s an obvious possibility.”
Maybe.
Maybe not.
My phone vibrated.
The hospital portal had updated.
The confirmatory testing was complete.
The substance detected in my sample was consistent with a prescription sedative that had never been prescribed to me.
I turned the screen toward Julian.
“This is real.”
His face hardened.
“Then call the police if you think my mother poisoned you.”
It sounded like a challenge.
I looked at the man I had slept beside for twelve years.
May you like
“I think I will.”
For the first time, he looked afraid.
