Chapter 3 - The Eight Forty-Five Cocktail
By seven o'clock, the house was silent again. The rain had picked up, slapping against the massive glass windows of the living room like handfuls of gravel.
Emma was in her room, quietly arranging her stuffed animals on her bed. I had told her to stay there, to lock her door from the inside, and not to open it for anyone except me. She had nodded, her small face completely calm, as if she had lived through twenty variations of this night already in her short life.
Nathan arrived home at eight-fifteen.
He didn't look like a murderer. He looked like an exhausted executive. He tossed his keys onto the marble console, his shoulders slumped, his face pale under the foyer lights. When he saw me sitting by the fireplace, a book open on my lap, his eyes narrowed slightly, but the old, sharp arrogance was missing.
He had probably already received the notification from the Delaware registry.
"You’ve been busy today, Audrey," he said, walking into the living room without taking off his wet trench coat. He stood near the edge of the rug, his hands buried deep in his pockets.
"I had some errands to run, Nathan," I said, not looking up from my page. "The estate needed some administrative updates."
"Administrative updates?" He let out a sharp, breathless laugh that sounded more like a rattle. "You stripped my proxy rights, Audrey. I sat in a pre-board briefing with the Port commissioners two hours ago, and my corporate token was flagged as 'pending shareholder review.' Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?"
"It’s only humiliating if you’re trying to sign things you don't own, Nathan," I said, finally closing the book and looking him in the eye. "Caldwell Pacific is seventy percent mine. I think it’s time we both remembered that."
He stepped closer, his face twisting into that ugly, dangerous mask I had seen the night before. "You think you’re clever? You think a piece of paper from Delaware changes anything? You’re unstable, Audrey. I’ve already spoken to Dr. Latham. He’s reviewed the journal entries I’ve been keeping about your... episodes. Your obsession with the child. Your paranoia about the staff. He’s preparing the paperwork for an emergency hold tomorrow morning."
"Then tomorrow morning will be very interesting for Dr. Latham’s legal team," I said quietly.
Nathan stared at me for a long, terrible moment. Then, slowly, the tension seemed to leave his shoulders. He blinked, a smooth, practiced smile sliding over his face like a mask being lowered into place.
"You know what? You're right," he said, his voice dropping into that soft, conciliatory tone he used when he was trying to close a difficult deal. "We’re both stressed. This expansion has been killing me, and the adoption has been hard on you. Let’s not do this tonight. Let me make you some tea. Let’s just... sit down and talk like we used to."
"Lavender?" I asked, my voice completely flat.
"Lavender," he nodded, turning away toward the kitchen. "It helps you sleep."
I watched him walk down the hall. The moment his back was turned, I pulled my phone from my pocket. The screen showed a live feed from the tiny, pinhole camera I had installed in the kitchen cabinet three hours earlier—a camera my Portland security team had provided before they took their positions in the tree line outside.
On the screen, Nathan didn't look at the kettle. He opened the spice cabinet behind the microwave, his fingers reaching for a small brown bottle with an eyedropper cap.
He didn't hesitate. He counted the drops into the porcelain teacup.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
He closed the bottle, hid it back behind the organic honey jars, and picked up the silver tray.
My watch read 08:43 PM.
May you like
He walked back into the living room at exactly eight forty-five, the teacup steaming slightly, the scent of lavender and something heavy, sweet, and synthetic filling the air between us.
"Here you go, sweetheart," he said, setting the tray down on the marble coffee table in front of me. "Drink it while it’s hot."
