Chapter 6 - What Was in the Bottle
Daniel sat in my kitchen while two officers searched the yard.
“What did Ethan mean?” I asked.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Your father’s heart medication went missing three days before he died.”
My chest tightened.
“Dad had a heart attack.”
“That’s what the hospital concluded.”
“And you think Ethan caused it?”
“I think someone replaced his medication.”
Rachel sat beside me. “Was there an autopsy?”
“No,” Daniel said. “Robert had a documented heart condition. The family accepted the cause of death.”
The family.
Me.
I had signed the cremation papers.
Daniel explained that my father had called him the night before he died. His speech was slurred, and he complained that his pills looked different.
Daniel drove to the house, but Ethan was already there.
“You saw Ethan with him?”
“I saw Ethan leaving.”
Ethan told everyone he had been in Chicago that night.
My hands started shaking.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“I did. Ethan produced flight records, hotel footage, and witnesses.”
“So he couldn’t have done it.”
“He could have arranged it.”
Rachel asked whether any of my father’s belongings remained in storage.
His clothes, books, and personal items were kept in a warehouse outside the city.
His medicine cabinet had been packed with them.
We drove there at sunrise with the police following us.
Inside the storage unit, dust covered rows of sealed boxes.
Daniel found one labeled MASTER BEDROOM—BATHROOM.
The medication bottles were inside.
One bottle still held three tablets.
Rachel photographed everything before placing the bottle in an evidence bag.
She called a private forensic laboratory and requested an emergency analysis.
As she spoke, I noticed a smaller box beneath my father’s shaving kit.
Inside was a handwritten letter addressed to me.
My fingers trembled as I unfolded it.
Claire, if you are reading this, I waited too long to tell you the truth. Ethan is not who you believe he is. I helped create the man he pretends to be, and that may be the greatest mistake of my life.
The letter continued for four pages.
My father had known Ethan before I met him.
Ethan had not joined Hayes Aerospace by chance.
Dad had hired him under another name after an accident at one of our factories fourteen years earlier.
The accident killed two workers.
One of them was Ethan’s father.
At the bottom of the final page, Dad had written:
He didn’t marry you because he loved you. He married you because he wanted my company.
A slow clap sounded from the entrance of the storage unit.
Ethan stood beneath the raised metal door.
“You finally found the letter,” he said.
May you like
Then he pressed a button in his hand.
The storage door began closing behind him.
