Chapter 6
Dr. Mills looked like a man already being chased by his conscience.
Ramirez pulled him inside.
Grace arrived ten minutes later.
No one slept.
Mills sat at the kitchen table with a blanket over his shoulders and a cup of water he did not drink.
I stood across from him.
It took everything in me not to grab him.
“You signed my wife’s death certificate,” I said.
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“You knew she was poisoned.”
“I suspected.”
Wrong answer.
I stepped forward.
Ramirez put a hand on my chest.
Mills flinched.
“I was paid to bury the lab report,” he said quickly.
“Arthur Voss paid me through a shell company. I told myself the result was inconclusive. I told myself grief was making the family unstable.”
“You told yourself lies.”
“Yes.”
His voice broke.
“Yes.”
Grace placed a recorder on the table.
“Start from the beginning.”
Mills talked for forty minutes.
Arthur had approached him after Claire sent the blood test.
He said Claire was trying to destroy important people.
He said she had a history of anxiety.
He said the report would cause unnecessary pain.
Then he offered money.
Then threats.
Mills took the money.
Claire died nine days later.
I closed my eyes.
Nine days.
My wife had nine days left while men in suits negotiated the price of her silence.
Mills slid the flash drive toward Grace.
“Emails. Payment records. Voicemails. I kept everything.”
“Why?” Grace asked.
“Because men like Arthur always need someone to blame.”
Then came the part that made even Ramirez go still.
“Elena visited my office two days before Claire died.”
My hand gripped the counter.
“What did she want?”
“She asked how much digitalis would look like a natural heart event.”
The room went silent.
Mills began to cry.
“I should have gone to the police.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You should have.”
Before dawn, federal agents were involved.
By noon, Arthur’s office was raided.
By evening, Elena was arrested again.
This time, not for questioning.
For attempted poisoning, child endangerment, conspiracy, stalking, and suspicion connected to Claire’s death.
She did not look afraid when they brought her into court.
She looked annoyed.
As if being held accountable was an inconvenience.
Her attorney argued she was being targeted by a grieving husband.
Then prosecutors played the hallway footage.
Elena carrying Sophie’s cup.
The bottles.
The tracker.
The note.
Mills’s statement.
Claire’s recording.
The judge denied bail.
Elena turned to me as officers led her away.
“You’ll never prove Claire.”
I looked at her.
“We already proved Sophie.”
Her face twisted.
For once, she had nothing polished to say.
Arthur was arrested two days later at a private airport.
False passport.
Cash.
Two phones.
A ticket to Geneva.
The news called it dramatic.
I called it late.
The trial would take months.
Maybe years.
But for the first time, the danger had a locked door between it and my daughter.
Sophie and I returned to Rebecca’s house.
Not the rental.
Not my mansion.
Rebecca’s loud, messy, safe home with cereal boxes on the counter and drawings taped to the fridge.
That night, Sophie asked to sleep on the floor beside my bed.
I let her.
Around midnight, she whispered, “Daddy?”
“I’m awake.”
“Was Elena going to make you go to heaven?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“I think she tried.”
Sophie was quiet.
Then she said, “I don’t want a new mommy.”
My heart broke cleanly.
I rolled onto my side and looked at her.
“You don’t have to have one.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Mommy Claire is enough.”
I reached down and held her hand over the edge of the bed.
May you like
“Yes,” I whispered.
“She is.”
