Chapter 2 - The Lethal Dose
My heart stopped beating in my chest as I stared at the blood on the floor.
Panic threatened to swallow me whole, but the protective instincts of a mother forced me to keep breathing.
I noticed a small, muddy footprint leading away from the puddle toward the old coal chute at the back of the cellar.
Ethan had not been seriously injured.
He had used a heavy glass jar to smash the interior lock, cutting his hand in the process, and crawled out through the chute.
I pulled out my phone and immediately activated the GPS tracker hidden inside his smartwatch.
The blinking blue dot showed he was hiding in the abandoned garden shed on our neighbor’s sprawling property.
I ran through the muddy hedges, ignoring the thorns tearing at my expensive coat.
When I threw open the shed door, Ethan collapsed into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
I wrapped him in my coat and used my silk scarf to tightly bandage his bleeding palm.
“Mommy, I recorded them on my watch after he took my iPad,” Ethan whispered, holding up his wrist.
I tapped the screen and listened to the audio recording my brave little boy had managed to capture.
Brandon’s voice played through the tiny speaker, sounding chillingly calm.
“The LLC transfer is ready, but we need Madison incapacitated so she doesn't read the fine print,” Brandon said.
Nicole’s voice followed, accompanied by the sound of pills rattling in a plastic bottle.
“I replaced her migraine capsules with the neurotoxin we bought online,” she laughed softly.
“She will feel dizzy, then she will lose all motor function within twenty minutes, making her compliant enough to sign anything,” Brandon confirmed.
The audio cut off, leaving only the sound of the freezing rain hitting the tin roof of the shed.
I looked down at my own hands, realizing they were trembling violently.
The intense migraine I had felt earlier was not from stress or exhaustion.
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I had swallowed two of those very pills with a glass of water right before I walked into the house.
My vision suddenly blurred, and my legs gave out completely as the world faded to black.
