Chapter 29: The Pill Test

Two percent. It was a digital heartbeat, faint and dying.

I didn't waste it on the photos. I didn't waste it on the emails. I went straight to the browser history.

If Mark was hiding this tablet, he was hiding his tracks. And tracks usually lead somewhere.

The screen flickered, the brightness set to the lowest setting, barely illuminating the dust motes dancing in the crawlspace. My finger hovered over the Chrome icon.

*Click.*

The browser opened. The last session was still active.

It wasn't a search for baby names. It wasn't a search for strollers or cribs.

It was a medical database. *MedScape.*

I scrolled down, the text blurring as my eyes adjusted to the stark white light. The search query was simple, terrifyingly specific.

*Clozapine + Scopolamine interaction + lethal dose.*

My breath hitched. They weren't just drugging me. They were calibrating.

I hit the back button.

The next search was from a real estate site. *Zillow.*

*Luxury rentals. Cayman Islands. Non-extradition.*

They weren't just leaving. They were disappearing.

I hit back again. And again.

*How to forge a death certificate.*
*Postpartum psychosis symptoms.*
*Custody laws for widower fathers.*

Widower.

The word sat on the screen like a toad. Mark didn't want a divorce. He didn't want a clean break. He wanted a tragedy. A grieving husband, a crazy wife, a tragic accident.

"I hear something," Chloe said. Her voice was right below me, separated only by a layer of drywall and insulation.

"It's just the house settling," Mark snapped. "Stop being paranoid."

"I'm not paranoid, Mark. I'm careful. That's why we're going to get away with this. Unlike last time."

Last time?

I looked at the tablet. 1%.

I needed to know about last time. I needed to know about 2016.

I opened the photo gallery. It was a risk, a massive drain on the battery, but I had to see.

The gallery loaded. Hundreds of thumbnails. Mark and Elena. Smiling. Kissing.

And then, a video.

The thumbnail showed a car. A red convertible, the front end crumpled against a tree. Smoke rising from the engine.

I tapped it.

The video played. It was shaky, filmed from a phone held in a trembling hand.

"Oh god," a woman's voice whispered. Elena. "Oh god, Mark, what did we do?"

The camera panned to the driver's seat. A woman was slumped over the steering wheel, her blonde hair matted with blood.

It wasn't Elena.

It was Sarah.

And in the passenger seat, unconscious but alive, was Mark.

"We have to go," Elena's voice said from behind the camera. "We have to leave her."

"We can't," Mark groaned, his head lolling. "She's my sister."

"She's dead, Mark! And you're drunk. Do you want to go to prison? Or do you want the money?"

The camera zoomed in on Sarah's unmoving form. On her neck, a necklace glinted in the wreckage. A simple gold chain with a pendant.

A baby rattle.

I looked closer. The video was high definition. I could read the engraving on the tiny silver charm.

*Elena & Mark 2016.*

It wasn't a rattle. It was a trophy. A sick little memento they had planted on the corpse.

The screen went black.

*0%*

The tablet died in my hands.

But I had seen enough.

Sarah wasn't just Mark's sister. She was his victim. And Elena wasn't just his ex-wife. She was his accomplice.

"Found her!"

The beam of the flashlight hit me, blindingly bright.

I looked up. A section of the drywall near the eaves had been kicked in. Chloe was standing on a ladder in the hallway, her head and shoulders thrust through the hole.

She was smiling.

"Peekaboo," she said.