Chapter 1 - The Evidence of Betrayal
Arthur stood frozen in the doorway of my hospital room, his eyes locked on the small, clear plastic evidence bag in the investigator's hand. Inside the bag was my orange prescription bottle. My heart medication.
“That’s…” Arthur’s voice cracked, his face turning the color of ash. “That’s her medicine. It was on the kitchen counter. I saw it.”
“You saw it before your daughter pocketed it,” Investigator Miller said, his voice cold and devoid of any sympathy. “When we raided your home an hour ago, we found this hidden at the bottom of Chloe’s laundry hamper, buried under a pile of sweaters.”
Arthur’s legs seemed to give out. He stumbled backward, catching himself on the doorframe. “No. Chloe wouldn't… she wouldn’t try to hurt her.”
“She didn't just try to hurt her, Mr. Vance,” Miller corrected sharply. “She sent a fifty-two-year-old woman with a documented heart condition into a blizzard without a coat, and she made sure she didn't have the pills needed to survive the cardiac event that the freezing temperatures would inevitably trigger. That is premeditated attempted murder.”
I lay in the hospital bed, the steady beep-beep of the heart monitor the only sound keeping me grounded. I didn't feel angry. I didn't feel sad. I just felt a hollow, icy clarity. For fifteen years, I had loved this man. I had held his hand through chemotherapy. I had raised a daughter who wasn't mine. And in my darkest hour, he had chosen a forged piece of paper over my life.
“Eleanor,” Arthur choked out, taking a step toward my bed. Tears were streaming down his face, soaking into the collar of the heavy winter parka he was wearing—the same parka he had refused to let me take. “Eleanor, my God, I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Stop,” I whispered. My throat was raw from the freezing air, but my voice was steady.
He froze.
“You didn’t know she hid my pills,” I said, locking eyes with him. “But you knew it was three degrees outside. You knew I was in slippers. You knew I had a heart condition. You knew I was begging you for a coat, and you watched me walk into the snow, and you locked the door.”
Arthur let out a ragged sob, dropping to his knees on the sterile linoleum floor. “Please. I was angry. I thought you stole from my company.”
“Get him out,” I said to the officer.
“Eleanor, please!”
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Investigator Miller grabbed Arthur by the shoulder of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. “You heard your wife, Mr. Vance. It’s time for you to leave. And I suggest you get yourself a very good lawyer. Because right now, the District Attorney is deciding whether to charge you as an accomplice.”
Arthur looked at me one last time, begging for a shred of forgiveness. He found nothing but ice.
