Chapter 3

I froze, completely blindsided. "Mom, what are you talking about?"

"Don't you call me that!"

Sophie pointed a finger at me, her voice hysterical. "Mom was doing perfectly fine. You're the only one who visited her yesterday, and now she's dead! It must be you!"

Leon stood right beside her, not saying a single word. His silence cut far deeper than Sophie's wild accusations.

Two police officers appeared at the far end of the hallway and walked toward us. "Who are the family members of the patient? We received a report from the hospital and need to look into the situation."

Sophie immediately lunged at them. "Officers! It's her! My daughter-in-law! She went over to give my mother-in-law medicine yesterday! She murdered her!"

The officers turned their gazes to me. "Miss, did you deliver medicine to the deceased yesterday?"

"I did, but—"

"Where is the pill bottle now?"

Leon finally spoke up, his voice chillingly calm. "Officers, the bottle should still be on the coffee table at my grandma's place. It's bound to have my wife's fingerprints on it, since she's the one who was taking care of it."

He didn't even look at me when he said it.

I understood what he was doing. He was trying to have all the evidence point toward me.

One of the officers left to secure the evidence from Phoebe's house and returned shortly after. He was holding a plastic evidence bag containing a bottle of pills.

I recognized it instantly. It was the new bottle I had bought at the chain pharmacy. The label and batch number printed on it were perfectly legitimate.

A wave of relief washed over me.

I had bought that bottle with my own two hands from a licensed pharmacy. The pills inside should be standard blood pressure medication.

Once the test proved the composition was normal, my innocence would be guaranteed.

"The preliminary lab results are in."

A forensic analyst walked over, his expression grim. "The residue from the pills remaining inside the bottle shows abnormal composition. They contain lethal doses of a compound that causes immediate cardiac arrest."

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

That was impossible.

I bought that bottle myself. I personally twisted the cap off to give Phoebe her pill. I had looked at the pills with my own eyes. They were fine.

Unless…

Someone had opened that bottle after I left and swapped the pills inside.

The bottle was the same, and the fingerprints on it were still mine. But the contents had been replaced.

The analyst continued, "We retrieved a set of clear fingerprints from the surface of the bottle. A quick cross-match confirms…"

He glanced at me. "They belong to Ms. Spencer."

Beside him, Sophie was sobbing so hard that she could barely catch her breath. "I told you it was her! Officers, why aren't you arresting her?"

Leon finally "broke down". His eyes turned bloodshot. "Officers, I-I don't want to believe it… but the evidence is right there. My grandma raised me since I was a boy…"

His voice cracked, and his shoulders trembled slightly.

The onlookers in the hallway began throwing pitying glances his way.

"That poor guy. His wife murdered his grandma."

"Karma will catch up to her. A toxic woman like that deserves to rot in prison."

The police officer turned back to me, his tone strictly professional. "Ms. Spencer, the evidence we have now is heavily stacked against you.

"The pill bottle recovered from the scene bears only your fingerprints. You were the last person to give medicine to the deceased, and the lab report has confirmed chemical tampering. Please come back to the station with us to cooperate with the investigation."

He unclipped a pair of handcuffs from his belt. The sharp, metallic clinking echoed through the hall.

Leon finally turned to look at me.

There was no anger or sympathy in his eyes. There was only a subtle, heavily suppressed look of absolute relief.