Chapter 5 - THE POISON IN THE GLASS
The text from Sarah arrived at 8:14 PM, while Daniel was in the basement pretending to look for our vintage luggage.
Lab report is back on the herbal bottle, Sarah wrote. Compound contains heavy concentrations of copper sulfate and sodium selenite. High-dose prolonged exposure causes acute hepatic necrosis and mimics end-stage biliary cancer on scans.
My phone trembled in my palm.
He wasn’t waiting for me to die, Sarah added a second later. He was manufacturing the disease.
The air left my chest in a silent, jagged gasp.
Dr. Porter’s diagnosis had been real—the scans did show advanced disease, the biopsy had shown cell death and abnormal tissue. But the origin hadn't been an act of God. It was an act of Daniel.
For four months, every time he brought me that mug of herbal tea with a kiss on the cheek, he had been feeding me poison. Just enough to degrade my liver function. Just enough to make the doctors look at an ultrasound and see a dying woman.
I walked into the kitchen, my movements fluid and cold.
On the kitchen island sat two wineglasses. Daniel had already poured the red blend we kept for special occasions. Beside my glass sat a small ramekin of mixed nuts and a tiny glass dropper bottle labeled Digestive Bitters.
I heard the basement door open, the heavy thump of his work boots ascending the wooden stairs.
“Couldn't find the large Pullman, Claire,” Daniel called out, his voice unnaturally loud. “I think it’s in the attic over the garage.”
He stepped into the kitchen. His face was flushed, sweat glistening at his hairline despite the cool autumn evening. He had changed out of his apron, his hands stuffed into his pockets.
“I added a few drops of your herbal bitters to your wine,” he said casually, nodding toward my glass. “To help with the rich food. The doctor said you should stay on the regimen until the inflammation clears, right?”
He was doubling down.
Faced with the prospect of an audit—faced with the reality that if I didn't die within the next few months, the two-million-dollar insurance policy would lapse and Evelyn’s seventy-five-thousand-dollar theft would be discovered—he had decided to speed up the schedule.
“Thank you, darling,” I said, picking up the glass of wine. The liquid was dark as dried blood under the kitchen pendant lights.
Daniel picked up his own glass. “To miracles,” he said, raising it toward me.
“To miracles,” I echoed.
I brought the rim to my lips, watching him over the curved glass. His eyes were wide, dilated, fixed on my mouth with a horrific, predatory intensity. He was waiting for me to swallow.
“Oh,” I said suddenly, lowering the glass. “Did you hear that?”
Daniel blinked. “Hear what?”
“The front gate. It sounded like the mail carrier dropping off an evening parcel.”
“It’s eight-thirty, Claire. Nobody’s delivering mail.”
“I’m certain I heard something,” I insisted, setting my glass down on the marble island right next to his. “Could you check? If it’s that box of archival prints from London, they can't sit in the rain.”
Daniel hesitated, frustration flickering across his features, but he couldn't afford to argue. “All right. One second.”
The moment his back disappeared down the hallway, I switched the two glasses.
It was an old, melodramatic trick, the kind found in Victorian gothic novels, but in the sterile, high-end kitchen of a Columbus suburb, it felt absurdly effective. The glasses were identical. The wine was the same vintage. Only one had three drops of copper sulfate dissolved into the alcohol.
Daniel walked back into the room, shaking his head. “Nothing out there, Claire. Just the wind.”
“My imagination,” I smiled, picking up the glass that had originally been his. “I guess I’m still a little jumpy.”
“Drink your wine,” he urged, his voice tight, his hand reaching for the remaining glass—the one he thought was mine. “You need to relax.”
He lifted the glass and took a long, deep swallow, draining half the vintage in a single gulp.
I took a tiny sip from my clean glass, feeling the warm, untouched fruit wash over my tongue.
May you like
“Good?” I asked.
“Very good,” Daniel whispered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, completely unaware that he had just toasted his own ruination.
