Chapter 10
The next few weeks were a blur.
Arraignments. Pleas. Court dates. More court dates.
Henderson flipped first.
Faced with life plus seventy-five years, he made a deal. Testified against Spencer and Brenda. Told the DA everything.
How it had started. Three years earlier. Spencer had come to him. Desperate for money. Offered him ten percent of the insurance payout if he helped “speed things along” with Thomas.
Henderson had agreed.
They had increased the morphine. Fudged the death certificate. Split the money. And realized how easy it was.
Then came Naomi's aunt. Same playbook. Different city.
Then Abigail.
The biggest score of all.
With Henderson's testimony, Brenda folded next.
She had been a last-minute addition. A nurse with gambling debts. Easy to blackmail. Easier to buy. She got ten years in exchange for her testimony.
Spencer refused to deal.
He fired three lawyers. Represented himself for a while. Tried to convince the jury that Abigail was a bitter, delusional old woman who had fabricated everything out of spite.
It didn't work.
The video was too damning. The recordings were too clear. Henderson and Brenda's testimony was too consistent.
The jury deliberated for four hours.
Guilty on all counts.
Conspiracy to commit murder. First-degree murder for Thomas's death. Fraud. Forgery. Elder abuse.
The judge sentenced him to life without parole. Plus one hundred and twenty years.
He would die in prison.
---
The day after the sentencing, Abigail went to the cemetery.
She brought flowers. Thomas's favorite—yellow roses.
Cleaned the headstone. Pulled the weeds. Sat on the grass beside him.
“I got them, baby,” she said softly. “All of them. They'll never hurt anyone again. I'm so sorry I didn't see it sooner. I'm so sorry I let him do this to you.”
A shadow fell across the grave.
Abigail looked up.
Naomi stood there. Holding her own bouquet of white lilies.
“Hope you don't mind,” Naomi said. “I wanted to pay my respects. And… I have something for you.”
She handed Abigail an envelope.
Abigail opened it.
A check. Made out to her. For two hundred and forty-three thousand dollars.
“What is this?”
“The money. All of it. Green found the accounts. Henderson had most of it stashed in the Cayman Islands. Spencer had gambled away about forty thousand, but the rest was recoverable. The court ordered restitution. It's all there. Every penny they stole from you.”
Abigail stared at the check.
She had forgotten about the money. In all the chaos of the trial, she hadn't thought about getting it back.
“And the lottery ticket?” Naomi asked.
Abigail smiled. Reached into her purse. Pulled it out. The same crumpled piece of paper she had carried for three weeks.
“I haven't claimed it yet. Couldn't. Not until it was all over. Not until I knew it was really mine. That he couldn't touch it.”
“Twenty million dollars,” Naomi said, shaking her head. “It's hard to wrap your head around.”
“Tell me about it.”
Abigail looked at the ticket. Then at Thomas's headstone.
“I don't want it, Naomi.”
Naomi blinked.
“What?”
“I don't want the money. Not like this. It feels… dirty. Like it's his. Like it came from all the lies and the death and everything that happened in that hospital room.”
Abigail tore the ticket in half.
Then in half again. And again. Until it was a hundred tiny pieces blowing in the wind across the cemetery grass.
“Abigail!” Naomi gasped. “That was twenty million dollars!”
“I know. But I have my money back. All two hundred and forty-three thousand. That's enough. More than enough. I have my house. I have my freedom. I have my name. And I have you. That's worth more than twenty million dollars any day.”
Naomi stared at her. Then laughed. A loud, shocked, wonderful laugh.
“You are the craziest woman I have ever met. And the bravest.”
She sat down beside Abigail on the grass.
“Now what?”
“Now we live. Really live. I'm going to fix up the house. Plant the garden Thomas always wanted. Travel a little. See the ocean. And you—you're going to law school. On me. Every penny. Tuition. Books. Rent. Whatever you need. Eleanor would have wanted it that way.”
Naomi's eyes filled with tears.
“You don't have to do that.”
“I know. But I want to. You saved my life, Naomi. Literally. If you hadn't sent that text… if you hadn't cared… I'd be dead right now. Buried right over there beside Thomas. And they'd be on a beach somewhere drinking my money. Let me do this for you. It's the only way I know how to say thank you.”
Naomi threw her arms around her.
For a long time, they sat there. Two women who had lost everything. And somehow found each other.
---
A year later.
Spring.
Abigail was in her garden. Kneeling in the dirt. Planting tomatoes. Just like Thomas used to do.
The house was perfect. New paint. New roof. The old sewing machine—she had bought it back from the pawn shop. Refurbished it. It sat in the corner of the living room now. A reminder. Not of what she had lost. But of what she had survived.
Naomi was home from law school for the weekend. Studying on the porch. Drinking iced tea.
The phone rang.
Abigail wiped her hands on her jeans. Answered.
“Mrs. Riley?” a woman's voice said. “This is Officer Miller with the state police. I'm calling about your son. Spencer Riley.”
Abigail's stomach dropped.
“What about him?”
“He was found dead in his cell this morning. Heart attack. He was thirty-five. We're required to notify next of kin.”
The words hit her like a physical blow.
Thirty-five.
Dead.
Heart attack.
The irony was not lost on her. The disease he had faked for so many months had finally come for him. Real this time.
“I see,” she said. Her voice steady. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“Will you be making the funeral arrangements?”
Abigail looked out at the garden. At Naomi laughing as a butterfly landed on her textbook. At the blue sky. At the life she had built from the ruins.
“No,” she said. “No, I won't. He has no family left. Bury him in the paupers' cemetery. Or donate his body to science. I don't care. Just don't send me a bill.”
She hung up.
Naomi looked up. Concerned.
“Who was it?”
“The police. Spencer is dead. Heart attack. This morning.”
Naomi set her book down. Came over. Stood beside her.
“How do you feel?”
Abigail thought about it.
For thirty-four years, Spencer had been the center of her universe. Every decision. Every sacrifice. Every breath. All for him.
And now he was gone.
And she felt… nothing.
No grief. No sadness. Not even anger.
Just empty space. Where a son used to be.
“Nothing,” she said honestly. “I feel absolutely nothing. Is that wrong?”
Naomi put her arm around her.
“No. It's not wrong. You mourned him a year ago, Abigail. Outside that hospital room. The boy you loved died a long time ago. Whatever was left in that cell… it wasn't him. It was just the monster he became.”
They stood together in the garden. Watching the butterflies.
“Come on,” Abigail said. Brushing the dirt from her knees. “Let's make dinner. Your favorite—spaghetti and meatballs. And then we have to study. You have that big exam on Monday. Future lawyers don't get to slack off.”
Naomi grinned.
“Yes, Mom.”
The word hung in the air.
Mom.
Abigail stopped. Looked at her.
Naomi's face went red.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean—It just slipped out. I know I'm not—”
Abigail pulled her into a hug.
“Hey. Don't you ever apologize for that. You're more of a daughter to me than Spencer ever was a son. Blood doesn't make family, Naomi. Love does. And we've got plenty of that.”
They went inside together.
The sun set over the garden.
Somewhere, a phone rang. But Abigail didn't answer it.
She had everything she needed right there in the kitchen.
---
Epilogue
Five years later.
Abigail is sixty-five.
She still lives in the same house. The garden is legendary in the neighborhood. She gives away more tomatoes and zucchini than she could ever eat.
Naomi graduated law school. Top of her class. She works for the DA now. Specializes in elder abuse and financial fraud. She has put away seventeen men just like Spencer.
They still live together. Two women. No husbands. No children. Just each other. And three very spoiled cats.
Abigail never claimed the lottery ticket.
Sometimes, late at night, she wonders what would have happened if she had. If she would be happier. Richer. Safer.
But then she looks at Naomi. At the garden. At the life they have built.
And she knows.
Money can buy houses. Cars. Trips around the world.
But it can't buy what she has.
A second chance.
A real family.
And the quiet, unshakable knowledge that she won.
Not the lottery.
May you like
But something far more important.
She won her life back.
