My Cheating Husband Drowned Me For My Millions—He Forgot My Paralyzed Brother Had A Secret

Tobias pulled a foil strip from the inner pocket of his waterproof pouch. Even in the gloom of the storm drain, I recognized the small, oval blue pills pressed into the blisters.

""Do you know what these are?"" Tobias asked.

""My migraine medication,"" I replied instantly. ""Garrett picked them up from the compound pharmacy downtown every two weeks. He always crushed one into a mug of warm milk with cinnamon before I went to sleep. He said the hot milk coated my stomach so the medication wouldn't cause ulcers.""

""He was coating your stomach, alright,"" Tobias said, his voice flat with suppressed rage. ""He was coating it with low-dose digitalis mixed with heavy sedatives. He wasn't curing your headaches, Rosalind. He was causing them. He needed you lethargic, weak, and dependent on his schedule. More importantly, he needed a documented medical history showing chronic fainting spells and confusion. In case anyone questioned why you drove off the road tonight.""

A violent shudder went through my whole frame. For eighteen months, I had felt like a shadow of myself. I had forgotten appointments, dropped coffee mugs on the kitchen tile, and suffered dizzy spells that made running our family business nearly impossible. I had voluntarily signed broad power-of-attorney documents over to Garrett six months ago, convinced that my mind was deteriorating and that my devoted husband was the only pillar keeping our lives from falling apart.

""He was poisoning me,"" I breathed, looking down at my trembling fingers. ""Every single night, while looking me straight in the eyes and telling me he loved me.""

""He didn't want you dead immediately,"" Tobias explained, clicking on a tiny red tactical penlight and pointing it at a handwritten log inside his packet. ""If you died too fast, our board of directors would demand a full autopsy. But if you were progressively slipping into medical dementia or depression, a fatal car accident on a rainy road would raise no red flags with the county coroner. Garrett would inherit fifty percent immediately. And with me drowning in the back seat, the entire estate would land squarely in his hands before sunrise.""

""Why tonight?"" I demanded, anger finally beginning to burn away the numbing paralysis of shock. ""Why did he do it tonight?""

""Because tomorrow at noon is the deadline for the naval patrol boat contract,"" Tobias said. ""Dad worked on that design for seven years before he died. It’s worth ninety million dollars in state manufacturing grants. If Savannah Creek Shipyard signs the contract, our family company becomes completely bulletproof for the next thirty years. But if the shipyard defaults on tomorrow's signing because the primary owners are missing or dead, the secondary bidder takes the contract by default.""

""Vance Marine Logistics,"" I whispered, the name slipping out like venom.

""Owned entirely by Garrett Vance and registered under Penelope’s legal maiden name,"" Tobias confirmed. ""They planned this down to the minute. They think we are at the bottom of the Blackwood River channel right now, trapped beneath eighty feet of black water and industrial silt. They won't even call the sheriff until midnight to report us missing, giving the current enough time to wash away any tire marks on the bridge.""

I stood up. My knees were bruised, my clothes sodden, and my chest burned with every inhalation, but the sickening fog that had clouded my brain for three years seemed to vanish under the searing heat of rage.

""We need to go to the police,"" I said. ""We go to Sheriff Walker. We show him the wire around the seatbelt frame.""

Tobias caught my wrist gently. ""Sheriff Walker’s daughter works as head of logistics for Vance Marine, Rosalind. Her house down by the harbor was purchased through an offshore account registered in the Cayman Islands three years ago. The law in Savannah Creek does not belong to us right now. If we walk into that station tonight, we won't live to see the dawn.""

""Then what do we do?""