“Find her,”
Aerys commanded.
“I have the sedative in my bag. We find her, we needle her, and we get those signatures. If she won’t sign voluntarily, we’ll use the thumbprint and a witness signature. I brought the notary seal.”
I realized then that this was a professional syndicate. This wasn’t just a husband and a mistress. This was a predatory team that had done this before. I looked at my phone. The recording was at 10 minutes. I had enough to bury them, but I needed to get out of this basement alive. I saw a small crawl space window at the far end of the basement. It was narrow, used for coal deliveries 50 years ago. I scrambled toward it, pushing aside old boxes of my father’s files, but as I reached for the latch, a hand grabbed my ankle.
“Gotcha.”
It was Mark. He had come down the back servant’s stairs. He pulled me back with such force my head hit the concrete floor.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Sarah?”
he sneered, pinning my arms down with his knees.
“Swapping the tea? Did you really think I wouldn’t notice eventually? I let you think you were winning because it made the episodes look more authentic to the neighbors.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh syringe.
“This one is the fast-acting stuff. You’ll be conscious enough to move your hand, but you won’t be able to say a word. Chloe, doctor, she’s down here!”
I looked up at him, my vision blurring from the hit to my head, but I didn’t feel fear. I felt a cold, hard certainty.
“Mark,”
I whispered, my voice raspy.
“Shut up, Sarah.”
“Mark, look at the water heater.”
He glanced over his shoulder. He saw the wrench I had used to tighten the line. But more importantly, he saw what I had done with the pilot light. I hadn’t just tightened the bolt; I had turned the temperature gauge to maximum and rigged the pressure release valve with my father’s heavy brass letter opener. The heater began to vibrate. A low, guttural growl started to build in the pipes.
“What did you do?”
he hissed, his face turning pale.
“I forensic accounted your plan, Mark,”
I said, a bloody smile spreading across my face.
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