Chapter 5 - THE BOTTLE IN THE TRASH
The mechanical voice hung in the air, chilling the room.
“I SAW HER EMPTY THE CAPSULES. I TRIED TO YELL. I COULDN’T BREATHE.”
“Oh my god,” Sarah choked out, falling back into an armchair. “They didn’t just wait for a stroke, Dana. They triggered it. It was attempted murder.”
I stared at the tablet, my mind racing back to that terrible afternoon nine months ago. I had been at the dental office. Cal had called me in a panic, saying he came home and found Arthur collapsed on the kitchen floor.
“Wait,” I said, my pulse pounding in my ears. “Arthur, if Bridget poisoned you... why didn't the hospital catch the overdose in your bloodwork?”
Arthur's eyes moved.
“THEY TOOK MY PRESCRIPTION BOTTLES. REPLACED THEM WITH NEW ONES.”
“Cal is friends with the pharmacist,” Sarah realized, her face white. “Dave from the country club. Dave would have pushed through an early refill if Cal said he lost a bottle.”
“Without the original bottle, we have no physical proof,” Leah said. “It’s just Grandpa’s word through a machine against a man who’s about to flee the country.”
I paced the floor. “No. No one commits the perfect crime, especially not Cal. He’s arrogant. He cuts corners. If he replaced the bottles, what did he do with the old ones?”
“Threw them away?” Sarah suggested.
“Cal doesn’t take out the trash,” I said. “He’s never taken out the trash in fifteen years of marriage. He burns his sensitive documents in the backyard fire pit.”
I grabbed the flashlight from the kitchen drawer and ran out the back door. The November air bit at my face. The fire pit sat at the edge of the lawn, a large stone basin filled with ash and half-burned logs.
I fell to my knees in the damp grass and began digging through the soot with my bare hands.
“Dana, you’re going to cut yourself,” Sarah said, running out behind me.
“Help me look!” I ordered, tossing aside charred pieces of mail.
For ten minutes, we sifted through the cold, wet ash. My nails were blackened, my knuckles scraped by the rough stone. There was nothing. Just old bank statements and empty cigar tubes.
Defeated, I sat back on my heels.
“It’s not here,” I whispered.
Then I looked up at the house. Specifically, at the small window of the downstairs half-bathroom.
“Sarah,” I said slowly. “When Arthur collapsed, Cal said he found him on the kitchen floor. But the paramedics' report said they loaded him from the half-bath.”
I sprinted back inside, tracking soot across the kitchen tiles, and threw open the door to the half-bath.
It was a tiny room that we rarely used, mostly storing extra cleaning supplies under the sink. I dropped to the floor and ripped open the vanity doors. I pulled out bottles of bleach, sponges, and old rags.
Right at the back, jammed behind the plumbing pipe, was a small, dusty plastic wastebasket.
I tipped it over.
Out tumbled a crumpled tissue, an empty toilet paper roll, and a translucent amber pill bottle.
I snatched it up. The label read: Arthur Miller. Diltiazem. 120mg.
The date on the label was from two days before the stroke.
And trapped inside the bottle, stuck to the very bottom, was a small, unmistakable smear of white residue. Not a pill. Powder. From capsules that had been pulled apart.
“I have it,” I breathed.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I wiped my hands on my jeans and pulled it out.
It was a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
Check your joint checking account. Now.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I opened my banking app, my soot-stained thumb slipping on the screen. The app loaded.
Our joint savings. The account holding my entire life savings, ten years of wages from the dental office, meant for our retirement.
Balance: $0.00.
May you like
Another text came through from the unknown number.
He told me you knew about the transfer. I’m sorry. -Bridget
