Chapter 2 - The Note in the Garage
Z
The officer read the note twice before looking at Lauren again.
I watched his eyes move over the page, his jaw tightening with every line. My sister stood beside her SUV with both hands wrapped around her elbows, shaking so hard that the gold bracelets on her wrist made a faint clicking sound.
“What does it say?” I asked.
No one answered me immediately.
The paramedics were still working around Daniel and Chloe. I could hear the sharp rip of medical tape, the crackle of radios, the wheels of the stretcher rolling across our kitchen floor. My daughter’s backpack had slipped off her shoulder and lay near the den doorway, half-open, with a math worksheet sticking out.
Then the officer finally turned the note toward me.
It was written in Daniel’s handwriting.
If anything happens to me, do not trust Lauren. Check the storage locker.
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
“That’s not possible,” I whispered.
Lauren’s face drained of color.
“He wrote that?” she said.
The officer nodded. “It appears so.”
I looked at Daniel lying unconscious on the stretcher. His face was pale beneath the oxygen mask, and his shirt was stained with coffee from the shattered mug. Eight years of marriage flashed through my mind—birthdays, arguments, school plays, late-night conversations, the quiet way he always held my hand when we crossed a street.
And suddenly, I realized there were things I didn’t know about him.
“What storage locker?” I asked.
Lauren began crying harder. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I snapped. “You said you only meant for him to sleep. What does that even mean?”
“I didn’t poison him.”
The kitchen went quiet.
An officer stepped between us. “Ma’am, we need you to calm down.”
“I’m calm,” I said, even though my hands were trembling. “My husband and daughter are unconscious, my sister says she meant for my husband to sleep, and there’s a note accusing her of something. So no, I’m not calm.”
Lauren looked at me with red, swollen eyes.
“I put something in the cinnamon plug-in,” she admitted.
Every nerve in my body went cold.
“What?”
“It was supposed to make Daniel dizzy. That’s all. I got it from someone I know. He told me it would only knock him out for a little while.”
“You put chemicals in our house?”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt Chloe!”
“But you did.”
The words came out louder than I intended. I saw one of the paramedics glance at me, then quickly look away.
Lauren covered her mouth. “I didn’t know she’d come home early.”
“She comes home at the same time every day.”
“I know.”
That answer was worse than anything else.
The officer took Lauren aside, but I could still hear parts of the conversation. She said Daniel had been “keeping something from me.” She said he had threatened to “destroy her life.” She said she only wanted time to find something before he woke up.
Then she stopped talking completely.
At the hospital, Chloe was rushed into pediatric emergency care while Daniel was taken to another floor. The doctors told me both of them had been exposed to an airborne sedative mixed with another unknown substance. They were alive. They were stable. But they needed monitoring.
Stable.
It was the only word keeping me from falling apart.
My mother called while I sat between two hospital waiting rooms. The police had contacted her, and she was already trying to book a flight home. I lied when she asked how bad it was.
“They’re going to be okay,” I told her.
I didn’t know if that was true.
An hour later, Detective Harris arrived with a small gray evidence box. He was older, broad-shouldered, and spoke in the controlled voice of someone used to delivering terrible news.
“We searched your garage,” he said. “We found a receipt for a storage facility about fifteen minutes from your home. The unit is registered under your husband’s name.”
“Daniel never mentioned a storage unit.”
“That may be important.”
“Was Lauren involved?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I stared at him. “She admitted she put something in our house.”
“She admitted to introducing a substance into the home. But the lab results aren’t back. And she claims she was trying to retrieve documents from your husband.”
“What documents?”
Detective Harris opened the evidence box.
Inside was an old burner phone.
“We found this hidden beneath the driver’s seat of Daniel’s car.”
My stomach twisted.
The phone had thirty-seven missed calls from a number with no name. The last text message was received at 2:49 p.m., less than half an hour before Chloe called me.
YOU SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED IT WHEN I TOLD YOU TO.
Below that was another message.
YOUR WIFE DOESN’T KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE.
I looked up at the detective.
“Daniel isn’t hiding another woman,” I said automatically.
Detective Harris didn’t respond.
That was when I knew the possibility had already crossed his mind.
Later that night, I sat beside Chloe’s hospital bed while she slept. Her face looked too small against the white pillow. Her fingers were attached to monitors, and every beep from the machines made my heart jump.
At 11:18 p.m., her eyes fluttered open.
“Mom?”
“I’m here, baby.”
She looked confused. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s getting help. You’re both safe.”
Her lips trembled. “Aunt Lauren was mad.”
I froze.
“What did she say?”
Chloe swallowed. “She was yelling at Dad before I came in. I heard her from the garage.”
“What were they saying?”
“She said, ‘You promised you’d protect me.’ Then Dad said he couldn’t anymore.”
My daughter’s eyes filled with tears.
“Mom… Aunt Lauren had a bag.”
“What kind of bag?”
“A black bag. Like Dad’s work bag.”
“What did she do with it?”
Chloe stared at the ceiling, trying to remember.
“She put it in the trunk of her car. Then she came inside and told me not to go into the kitchen.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Lauren had arrived at our house after the police.
May you like
But if Chloe was telling the truth, then Lauren had been there before.
And whatever she took from Daniel had been worth risking my daughter’s life to get.
