Chapter 3 - The Hidden Truth
I handed my sleeping son to a trusted pediatric nurse and sprinted to my car in the hospital parking lot.
I drove perfectly over the speed limit, blowing through two red lights to get back to my house.
I needed to find my mother's pill bottles before she could return home and destroy the evidence.
The front door was still unlocked from when the paramedics had rushed inside earlier.
I kicked the door wide open, the wood splintering slightly against the frame.
The house was eerily silent, the smell of scorched rice still hanging heavy in the air.
I ran straight to the guest bedroom where my mother had been staying for the past week.
Her suitcases were already unzipped and thrown aggressively onto the bed.
She had been packing to leave before she decided to follow me to the hospital.
I tore through her vanity drawer, tossing makeup and jewelry onto the floor.
Tucked all the way in the back was a small, amber prescription bottle with her name printed on the label.
I ripped the childproof cap off and shook the bottle upside down over the carpet.
It was completely empty, though she had just refilled the ninety-day supply two days ago.
I pulled out my phone to call the police detective the hospital had dispatched.
As I dialed the numbers, I noticed a strange, blinking red light coming from the corner of the ceiling.
It was a small, high-definition nanny camera tucked behind the crown molding.
Clara and I had never installed cameras inside the house.
I grabbed a chair, ripped the camera down, and pulled the memory card out of the slot.
I slid the card into my laptop and clicked on the most recent video file.
The footage showed my mother standing over Clara's cup of tea, grinding dozens of pills into a fine white powder.
But the video also captured my mother speaking to someone on the phone while she did it.
May you like
"The wife is taken care of," my mother whispered into the receiver.
"Send the van to the back alley, because I am bringing the baby out now."
