Chapter 5 - A Monster’s True Face
I raced back to the hospital, leaving the police to finish bagging evidence in my desecrated home. The ICU was quiet, bathed in dim, restful blue light. Walking into Emily’s room broke what was left of my heart. She lay beneath crisp white hospital sheets, pale as snow, with tubes running into her arms and oxygen prongs resting under her nose. Dark, purplish circles hollowed out her eyes, making her look ten years older than her twenty-six years.
When she heard my footsteps, her head turned slowly. Her hazel eyes filled with tears, and her cracked lips trembled. ""Ethan..."" she breathed out, lifting a frail, IV-bruised hand toward me.
I dropped to my knees beside her bed, burying my face in the edge of the mattress as deep, racking sobs tore through my chest. ""I'm so sorry, Em,"" I wept, gripping her cold fingers and kissing them over and over. ""I should have never left. I should have told my boss to fire me. I trusted them. I left you with wolves.""
Emily’s fingers weakly tightened around mine. ""It wasn't your fault... you didn't know. The second day... after you left... Linda told me you called and said you regretted marrying me. She said you only took the trip to get away from us."" Emily swallowed hard, a painful tear sliding into her hair. ""She took my phone while I was in the bathroom. When I tried to walk to the kitchen to get Noah a bottle, Ashley shoved me onto the bed and locked the door. Linda told me through the wood that I was a useless stray who stole her son’s money, and that if I died, Ethan would finally come home to his real family.""
Rage, cold and blinding, solidified in my gut. Every lingering shred of filial affection, every memory of my mother tucking me in as a boy, vanished into ash. Linda hadn’t just neglected them out of laziness; she had maliciously weaponized Emily’s vulnerability to destroy her, hoping to step into the role of primary caregiver and reclaim financial control over my life.
Two hours later, Detective Miller stepped into the ICU waiting room. He motioned for me to join him in a private consultation corner. He pulled out a tablet and swiped through digital files. ""We obtained a search warrant for your mother’s and sister’s cell phones, Ethan. What we found goes far beyond what we initially suspected.""
He turned the screen toward me. Text messages between Linda and Ashley from three days prior lit up the glass:
Ashley: The baby won't shut up. The salt isn't knocking him out fast enough. Should I give him more Benadryl?
May you like
Linda: Just half a pill crushed in the water. Keep the door hooked. If Emily gets too weak to talk, Ethan will have to sign temporary guardianship of the child over to me so he can keep working his warehouse job. Once we have custody, we get the child support, Emily's life insurance through her job, and Ethan will have to let us live in the house permanently. Keep the cardboard on the vent. Let her sweat it out.
""Emily had a supplementary life insurance policy through her dental hygienist job,"" Miller explained, his jaw tight. ""Five hundred thousand dollars, naming you as primary beneficiary and your estate as secondary. Linda believed that if Emily passed and you were broken by grief, she could step in as your legal conservator and executor. We have them on felony child abuse, attempted involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder.""
