Chapter 6
She blinked at the ceiling, confused.
Her eyes were glassy, unfocused.
It took her a long moment to register that I was sitting there, holding her hand.
“…Nat?”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
Rough.
Dry.
Like she’d been screaming for hours.
“I’m here, Maddy. I’m right here.”
I squeezed her hand gently, pressing the call button for the nurse with my other. “Don’t try to talk yet. The doctor will be here in a second.”
She turned her head slowly on the pillow to look at me.
Her brow furrowed.
“Hospital? Why… why am I in the hospital? What happened? The last thing I remember is… your graduation party. I was drinking champagne and then… nothing.”
The doctor came in then, followed by my mother.
They did a quick exam, shone lights in her eyes, asked her a few simple questions.
When they were done, the doctor smiled.
“Excellent. All vitals are perfect. You’re going to make a full recovery, Madison. We just want to keep you here another day or two for observation, make sure there are no lasting effects from the… incident.”
He patted her shoulder gently and left.
The room went quiet.
Madison looked from me to my mother and back again.
She could feel the tension.
Thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Mom?” she said, her voice stronger now. “What is going on? Why is everyone acting like someone died? And why are there police officers outside my door? I saw them when the doctor came in.”
My mother and I exchanged a look.
This was the part I’d been dreading.
How do you tell the girl who worships her father that he’s a monster?
That he tried to kill her sister?
That she’d almost died because of him?
My mother sat down on the edge of the bed, taking Madison’s other hand.
Her eyes were already glistening with tears.
“Baby, I need you to listen to me very carefully. What I’m about to tell you… it’s going to hurt. It’s going to turn your whole world upside down. But you have a right to know the truth. All of it.”
She told her.
Everything.
Starting with the party.
How I’d seen Richard put the sedative in my glass.
How I’d given it to her without thinking.
How she’d collapsed.
How we’d found out about the will.
The embezzlement.
His confession.
How he’d run from the police and was now somewhere out there, a fugitive.
She didn’t say a word while my mother talked.
She just lay there, her eyes getting wider and wider, her face getting paler and paler.
When my mother finally finished, there was a long, terrible silence.
And then Madison laughed.
A sharp, bitter, unbelieving sound.
“No.”
She shook her head, yanking her hands free from both of ours.
“No. That’s not true. That’s… that’s insane. Daddy would never do that. Never. He loves me. He loves both of us. You’re lying. Both of you. You’re making this up because you’re jealous! You’ve always been jealous, Nat! Jealous that Daddy loved me more! Jealous that I was the favorite! So you and Mom cooked up this crazy story to ruin him! Well, it’s not going to work! I don’t believe you! Not a single word!”
She was screaming now, her face flushed, her monitors beeping faster and faster in alarm.
“Get out! Both of you! Get out of my room! I want my father! I want Daddy! Call him! Tell him I’m awake! He’ll explain everything! He’ll tell you how crazy you both are!”
“Madison, he’s gone,” I said softly. “He ran from the police. He left you here. Alone. If he loved you so much… why isn’t he here?”
That stopped her.
Her mouth snapped shut.
Her chest heaved.
The question hung in the air between us, heavy and unanswerable.
If he loved her.
If he was innocent.
Where was he?
Her eyes filled with tears.
Big, hot, angry tears that spilled over and ran down her temples into her hair.
“You’re lying,” she whispered, but there was no conviction in it anymore.
Her voice was breaking.
“He’d be here. If he could. He’d be here.”
The door opened.
Detective Carter stepped inside, holding a thin plastic evidence bag.
She looked from Madison’s tear-streaked face to mine, her expression gentle but firm.
“Ms. Brooks. Madison. I’m sorry to interrupt. But I think you need to see this.”
She held up the evidence bag.
Inside was Richard’s phone.
The expensive gold one he’d carried everywhere for the last two years.
“We found it this afternoon,” she said. “He threw it out of his car window on the highway north of the city. He didn’t want us tracking him. But he forgot one thing. Phones automatically back up to the cloud. Even when you throw them away.”
She pulled a tablet from her briefcase and tapped the screen a few times.
Then she turned it toward Madison.
“I think you should hear this, Madison. It’s a voice recording. Made on the night of the party. About an hour before Natalie’s graduation party started. It’s a phone call between your father and his attorney.”
She pressed play.
Richard’s voice filled the room.
Cold.
Clear.
Calculating.
Just like I’d heard a hundred times before.
“…the packet is ready. Fast-acting, strong enough to keep her out for at least seventy-two hours. I slip it into her champagne, she drinks it, she collapses. Everyone thinks it’s exhaustion or too much alcohol. By the time anyone figures out it was something else, the forty-eight-hour window to contest the will default will have passed. The company is mine. The money is mine. And Natalie? She wakes up in a hospital bed with a nice little trust fund and no idea what hit her. Clean. Simple. No loose ends.”
There was a pause.
Then the attorney’s voice, muffled.
“And if something goes wrong? If someone sees you?”
Richard laughed.
A low, cruel sound.
“Who’s going to believe the ungrateful daughter over me? Richard Brooks, pillar of the community? Please. I’ve spent twenty years making sure everyone knows she’s the difficult one. The problem child. If she tries to say I drugged her? Everyone will just nod and say ‘there she goes again.’ She has no credibility. No friends in high places. No one who’ll take her word over mine. It’s foolproof.”
Another pause.
“Just make sure you don’t accidentally give the wrong glass to Madison. That girl’s got the metabolism of a bird. Half that dose would stop her heart.”
Richard’s voice, dismissive, careless.
“Relax. I marked Natalie’s glass with a gold card. I’ll know which one is hers. Madison will be fine. She’s my real legacy. Nothing’s going to happen to her.”
The recording ended.
Detective Carter turned off the tablet.
The room was dead silent.
Madison stared at the black screen.
Her face was completely blank.
No tears.
No anger.
No denial.
Just… nothing.
Like someone had reached inside her chest and ripped her heart out.
Slowly, she turned her head to look at me.
Her eyes were hollow.
Broken.
“He meant it for you,” she whispered. “All of it. He meant to do that to you. And I… I drank it. I almost died because of him. Because of my own father.”
A single tear slid down her cheek.
“He called me his legacy.”
She let out a small, broken sob.
“I was just an afterthought. A backup plan. He didn’t love me. He loved what I could do for him. What I represented.”
She looked up at my mother, then at me.
And for the first time in my life, my perfect, golden-child sister looked at me like I wasn’t her rival.
Like I was just… her sister.
“I’m so sorry, Nat,” she whispered. “For everything. For all the years I was mean to you. For throwing it in your face that he loved me more. For believing him over you. I had no idea. I swear to God, I had no idea what he was.”
I leaned forward and took her hand again.
This time, she didn’t pull away.
She clung to mine like it was the only thing keeping her from drowning.
“I know, Maddy,” I said softly. “I know. He fooled all of us. But it’s over now. We’re going to be okay. All three of us. Together.”
She nodded, fresh tears spilling over.
May you like
And for the first time in as long as I could remember…
I actually believed it.
