Chapter 3 - What Was in the Glass
We brought Frederick home the following afternoon.
The doctors told us to watch his temperature carefully and keep him hydrated.
I wanted nothing more than to lock the doors and protect my family.
Instead, our house had become evidence.
Detective Ramirez had sealed my upstairs office.
The police photographed the safe.
There were no signs of forced entry.
That meant someone had either known the combination or watched me enter it.
Only three people had ever been near the safe while I used it.
Amy.
My mother.
And Mason.
Amy had never touched my financial documents.
That left two names.
Ramirez arrived around noon.
He placed several photographs on the dining table.
The first showed the forged deed.
The second showed the power-of-attorney paperwork.
The third showed a small handwritten calendar.
Several dates were circled.
One was Frederick’s birthday.
Another was the coming Sunday.
Beside Sunday, someone had written two words.
FINAL SIGNATURE.
I felt my skin crawl.
“What were they planning?”
Ramirez leaned back.
“We don’t know yet.”
“But we found something interesting in your mother’s purse.”
He placed another evidence photograph down.
A small plastic bottle.
No label.
Amy whispered.
“What is that?”
“It has been sent for testing.”
My mind immediately returned to the herbal drink Teresa had mentioned.
I told Ramirez.
His expression changed.
“Did she give you anything unusual recently?”
I thought carefully.
Then I remembered a dinner three weeks earlier.
Teresa had poured me wine.
I had become unusually dizzy after half a glass.
She had laughed and told everyone I could no longer handle alcohol.
I had barely remembered getting home.
Amy looked horrified.
“You were sick the entire next morning.”
I nodded.
Then another memory surfaced.
I had awakened with black ink on the side of my right hand.
At the time, I assumed I had touched one of Frederick’s markers.
Now I wondered whether I had been holding a pen.
Ramirez immediately asked whether I had signed anything that night.
“I don’t remember.”
That answer frightened me more than I wanted to admit.
He stood.
“We need everyone who attended that dinner.”
My mother had hosted it.
Mason had been there.
So had Aunt Betsy.
My uncle Raymond.
And my mother’s longtime friend, Gloria.
Five people.
Five possible witnesses.
Or five participants.
After Ramirez left, Amy opened a cabinet beneath the kitchen island.
She pulled out a stack of envelopes.
“I should have shown you these sooner.”
Every envelope was addressed to Teresa.
But the return address was our home.
“What are they?”
“I found them in the trash after your mother visited.”
Inside were letters from banks.
A title company.
And a private lending service.
One envelope contained a rejection notice.
Applicant: Teresa Bradley.
Collateral offered: Residential property belonging to Connor Bradley.
I stared at the page.
She hadn’t merely wanted my house.
She had already tried using it.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I opened the message.
It contained one photograph.
Me.
Unconscious at my mother’s dining table.
A pen was in my hand.
And beneath my wrist was a document I had never seen before.
May you like
The message contained only six words.
Your mother wasn’t working alone, Connor.
