Chapter 5
Detective Holt took Ethan’s statement that night.
Gently.
Carefully.
With Nora sitting beside him.
I watched from the corner while my brother twisted the blanket in his hands and tried to be brave.
“She always made him drink it,” he said.
“Every night?” Detective Holt asked.
“Almost.”
“Did your father ever refuse?”
Ethan nodded.
“One time. She got mad. She said he was making her look like a bad wife.”
My jaw clenched.
That sounded like Sarah.
Everything was about appearance.
The grieving widow.
The patient stepmother.
The woman burdened by broken children.
Detective Holt asked, “Did you ever see what she put in the tea?”
Ethan thought hard.
“A little bottle. Brown glass. She kept it in the laundry room.”
I stood so fast the chair scraped.
Detective Holt looked at me.
“Olivia?”
“I know where it is.”
“You are not going back to that house.”
“I know where she hides things.”
The detective’s eyes sharpened.
“Tell me.”
“Behind the dryer panel. She kept cash there. Pills. Dad’s old watch.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw her once. She told me if I told Dad, she’d say I stole from her.”
Detective Holt wrote everything down.
At dawn, police searched our house.
I was not allowed inside.
Ethan and I sat in Mr. Alvarez’s living room across the street, watching officers carry evidence bags out of the home where we used to feel safe.
They brought out the brown bottle.
Then a box of Dad’s medications.
Then a stack of insurance forms.
Then Dad’s laptop.
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
Mr. Alvarez turned off the television even though it wasn’t on.
Some silences need protecting.
By noon, Sarah’s lawyer filed for access to the house.
He said she needed clothing.
Documents.
Personal items.
Detective Holt denied it.
By three, Sarah’s sister showed up.
Aunt Marlene.
Not my real aunt.
Not anything to me.
She marched up Mr. Alvarez’s driveway wearing sunglasses and anger.
I opened the door before he could stop me.
Marlene pointed at my face.
“You little liar.”
Mr. Alvarez stepped beside me.
“You need to leave.”
“She ruined Sarah’s life.”
“Sarah tied a child to a chair.”
Marlene leaned closer.
“That boy has always been strange.”
I slapped her.
I didn’t plan it.
My hand moved before my fear could stop it.
The sound cracked across the porch.
Marlene staggered back, stunned.
I stepped forward.
“My brother is not strange. He is traumatized.”
Her face twisted.
“You’ll pay for that.”
Detective Holt’s car pulled up behind her.
Perfect timing.
Marlene turned pale.
The detective stepped out.
“Threatening a minor witness on camera is a bold choice.”
Marlene looked up.
Mr. Alvarez’s porch camera blinked red.
She left without another word.
That evening, Detective Holt came inside.
She removed her coat slowly.
I knew that meant bad news.
Or important news.
Maybe both.
“The bottle contained a digitalis compound,” she said.
Mr. Alvarez shut his eyes.
I knew enough from school biology to feel sick.
Heart medication.
Dangerous in the wrong dose.
“What does that mean?” Ethan asked.
Detective Holt crouched in front of him.
“It means we need more tests to know whether it hurt your dad.”
“But it could have?”
“Yes.”
Ethan looked at me.
His face crumpled.
“I should have told.”
I dropped to my knees in front of him.
“No.”
“I saw the tea.”
“No, Ethan.”
“I saw her.”
“You were a kid.”
“I’m still a kid.”
The sentence broke me.
I pulled him into my arms.
“Yes,” I whispered. “You are. And none of this was yours to stop.”
But guilt is not reasonable.
It crawled into both of us anyway.
Two days later, the court granted temporary placement.
Ethan and I were allowed to stay with Mr. Alvarez until my Aunt Rachel arrived from Oregon.
I barely remembered her.
Dad’s younger sister.
Sarah had cut her off after the wedding.
Said Rachel was unstable.
Jealous.
Toxic.
Now I questioned every word Sarah had ever spoken.
Aunt Rachel arrived at midnight.
She stepped out of a rental car with messy hair, red eyes, and a suitcase in each hand.
The second she saw us, she dropped everything.
“Olivia.”
I stood frozen.
She started crying.
Then Ethan ran to her first.
She folded around him like she had been waiting six months to breathe.
I walked into her arms next.
She smelled like rain and airport coffee.
May you like
“I tried,” she sobbed into my hair. “Your dad stopped answering. Sarah blocked my number. I tried.”
For the first time since Dad died, I felt family reach back.
