I covered his ear with one hand.
The woman backed away from Ethan.
“I heard what you said in the car.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You said you put enough in for both of them.”
“You already knew that.”
“I heard you say it.
That doesn’t mean I understood what you had actually done until we left.”
Ethan stepped toward her.
“Don’t start pretending you’re innocent now.”
She didn’t answer.
Neither did I.
Because she wasn’t innocent.
Whatever had happened between them, she had been on the other end of that phone while my husband calmly described making two people disappear.
She had told him they would finally be free.
But something had changed after they left the house.
I didn’t know what yet.
Ethan did.
“Where’s your phone?” he demanded.
The woman didn’t answer.
Then I heard it.
A faint vibration from somewhere near the kitchen.
Ethan heard it too.
“Who did you call?”
“Nobody.”
“Give it to me.”
A chair scraped violently across the floor.
The woman gasped.
“Don’t touch me.”
The dispatcher spoke softly through my phone.
“Officers are at the residence.
Stay behind the locked door.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
Outside, the sirens had stopped.
That meant they were close.
Ethan must have realized it too, because suddenly he wasn’t arguing with the woman anymore.
He was moving.
A cabinet opened.
Something struck the countertop.
Then the woman shouted, “Leave it there!”
Ethan rushed back toward the front of the house.
Three hard knocks hit the door.
“Police!”
Ryan buried his face against me.
Ethan froze.
Another knock.
“Police! Open the door!”
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Ethan came back to the bathroom.
“Tell them you’re fine,” he whispered through the door.
His calm voice had returned, but now I could hear him breathing hard between the words.
“Tell them you made a mistake.
Tell them Ryan got sick and you panicked.”
I stared at the thin strip of light beneath the door.
He had poisoned us, stepped over our bodies, said goodbye, and left.
Now he wanted me to protect him.
