“By then, there won’t be anything to save.” I heard the refrigerator door open. Daniel removed something. Then he said, “I told you, I’ll handle the rest.” The phone call ended. I expected him to leave, but instead he stood there for almost a minute. Then he walked toward us. His shoes stopped beside Noah.
“You were always the difficult one,” he whispered. My son’s body went completely rigid. “Your mother always protected you. She never understood that sometimes protecting someone means letting them go.” Daniel knelt.
“And tomorrow, everybody will believe you both died peacefully.”
He paused. “It will be tragic. A defective appliance. Carbon monoxide. Maybe a gas leak. I’ll decide later.” My blood turned cold.
He wasn’t improvising. He had already imagined our deaths. He had already imagined the story he would tell everyone afterward. Daniel stood and walked away. The garage door opened again. His footsteps disappeared. Then the engine of his car roared to life.
Noah waited until the sound faded before opening his eyes.
“Mom,” he whispered. “He’s going to kill us.” I looked at my son. “I know.” “We have to leave.” “Not yet.” “Why?” I pulled the plastic bag from beneath my shirt.
“Because if we leave, we lose the only proof we have.”
Noah stared at it. “What was in the food?” “I don’t know.” I looked toward the garage. “But somebody wanted us to believe Daniel poisoned us.” Noah frowned. “What do you mean?” I lowered my voice.
“Think about what he just said. He told someone the dose was enough. He said he checked. He said the ambulance would come eventually.” Noah swallowed. “So?” “So he expected us to die before the ambulance arrived.”
I looked at the blue plate. “But if he knew exactly what was in that food, he wouldn’t have needed to come back and check our pulses.” Noah stared at me. “You think he didn’t poison us?” “I think he wanted us to think he did.”
Before Noah could answer, headlights flashed across the kitchen window again. We froze. A vehicle stopped outside. Not Daniel’s sedan.
This one was dark, unmarked, and larger. Three doors opened almost simultaneously. Noah grabbed my wrist. “Police?” I shook my head. “Too fast.” A flashlight moved across the backyard. Then another. Someone tried the back door. The handle moved once. Twice. I pulled Noah toward the pantry and pushed him behind the narrow wall beside the refrigerator. We had barely hidden when the back door opened. Two men entered.
They wore dark jackets, gloves, and no visible police markings. The first one looked around the kitchen. The second closed the door behind him. “Where are they?” the second man asked. “Kitchen.” “Check the bodies.”
The first man approached us. I could see his shoes through the narrow gap between the pantry door and the wall. He crouched beside my body. His hand touched my neck. I kept my breathing shallow.
Không có mô tả ảnh.
He waited. Then he said, “She’s alive.” My entire body went cold. “What?” “Pulse is weak, but she’s alive.” The second man cursed. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
The first man reached for his phone. “Call him.” I opened my eyes. “Don’t.” He looked directly at me. I moved before he could react. I drove my shoulder into his knees and sent him crashing sideways into the cabinets. Noah came out of hiding and grabbed the other man’s arm.
The man swung at him, but Noah ducked and pulled the emergency fire extinguisher from beneath the sink. He didn’t strike the man with it. He simply pulled the safety pin and discharged it toward the floor, creating a thick cloud that filled the kitchen. I grabbed the first man’s phone and dragged Noah through the back door. We ran barefoot across the wet grass while the men shouted behind us. I didn’t know where we were going. I only knew we had seconds.
We reached the neighbor’s fence, climbed over it, and dropped into the yard on the other side. Noah stumbled. I caught him. “Keep moving.” “Mom, I can’t.”
“You can.” “My legs are still weak.” I looked at him and realized his face was pale. Whatever had been in the food was still affecting him. I grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. We reached the neighbor’s porch just as distant sirens began to approach.
