Chapter 5 - My Name on the BottleSebastian survived.
He refused.
Not because he wanted to abandon me.
Because Detective Reed had secured an emergency warrant for our house, and Sebastian insisted on seeing what investigators found.
I didn’t stop him.
Part of me needed him to walk through every room and see what his loyalty had allowed.
He returned just after sunrise.
He looked ten years older.
I was feeding Evelyn when he entered.
He stopped in the doorway.
“What?”
I asked.
He walked to the chair beside my bed and sat without removing his coat.
“There were cameras.”
I stared at him.
“We already had cameras.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Not ours.”
A chill moved through me.
“Where?”
“Bedroom. Bathroom hallway. Kitchen. Your dressing room.”
I felt sick.
“The bedroom?”
He nodded.
“Hidden inside smoke detectors and electrical outlets.”
“Who installed them?”
“They’re tracing equipment.”
“Your family’s security company?”
“Some hardware matches Bennett Secure inventory.”
I closed my eyes.
Every private moment.
Every argument.
Every night I changed clothes.
Every time I cried because I thought pregnancy was making me paranoid.
Someone had been watching.
Sebastian put his face in his hands.
“They found recordings.”
“What recordings?”
“You sleeping.”
I stopped breathing.
He looked at me.
“Two different nights. Someone enters after midnight.”
“Who?”
“The camera angle doesn’t show the face clearly.”
“Man or woman?”
“Woman.”
My stomach turned.
“What does she do?”
Sebastian couldn’t answer.
“Sebastian.”
“She injects something into your thigh.”
My hand flew to the bruised skin under the blanket.
“And?”
“Then two people come in.”
“Two?”
“They restrain your ankles.”
The room blurred.
I remembered waking with soreness.
Missing pajama pants.
Margaret telling me pregnant women sometimes bruise easily.
“What else?”
Sebastian’s silence told me enough.
“What else?”
“They photographed you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Detective Reed entered behind him.
“We think we might.”
He placed a folder on the table.
Inside were printed images taken from my house.
Some showed me asleep.
Others showed medicine bottles positioned beside my hand.
A glass containing alcohol placed on my bedside table.
Prescription pills scattered near my pillow.
Staged evidence.
“They were building a record,” Reed said.
“To make me look unstable.”
“More than unstable.”
He showed another image.
My unconscious hand had been positioned around an empty vodka bottle.
I stared at it.
“I don’t drink.”
“We know.”
“The police wouldn’t.”
“That’s likely the point.”
Sebastian stood abruptly and walked to the window.
Reed continued.
“If something happened to you, these images could support a narrative involving substance abuse or postpartum instability.”
Something happened to you.
The adult body bag flashed through my mind.
“They were planning to kill me.”
“We don’t have enough evidence to say that yet.”
“But you think it.”
Reed didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Sebastian turned.
“Where is my mother?”
“Being interviewed.”
“Arrest her.”
“I don’t arrest people because you demand it.”
“You have forged documents.”
“We have photographed copies. Originals are missing.”
“You have cameras.”
“We have unidentified individuals.”
“You have a fake nurse!”
“Who currently refuses to name your mother.”
Sebastian looked furious.
Detective Reed remained calm.
“Your family employs attorneys, private investigators, physicians and security contractors. If we rush this, they’ll bury the evidence.”
That word stopped Sebastian.
They.
Not your mother.
The conspiracy might be larger.
Reed pulled another document from his folder.
“We recovered a deleted schedule from your home security server.”
Dates.
Times.
Initials.
My prenatal appointments.
Nights Sebastian traveled.
Days Margaret visited.
Every entry corresponded to something I remembered.
Dizziness.
Missing time.
Unexpected bruises.
The final entry was yesterday.
V.B. — HOSPITAL / PHASE 3
“Phase three?” I whispered.
“We’re trying to locate phases one and two.”
A knock sounded.
Camille entered.
She looked as if she hadn’t slept.
“I know what Phase One was.”
We stared at her.
She closed the door.
“When Valerie got pregnant, Mom asked me to help find a private investigator.”
Sebastian’s face turned cold.
“You did what?”
“I didn’t know why.”
“You hired someone to investigate my wife?”
“She said Valerie might be hiding financial problems.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Camille continued.
“The investigator’s name was Eric Sloan.”
Reed immediately wrote it down.
“He worked for Mom years ago.”
“What did he investigate?” I asked.
“You. Your family. Your medical history.”
“My medical history is private.”
“I know.”
“How did he get it?”
Camille looked toward Sebastian.
“Through Dr. Keller.”
The obstetrician.
Again.
Reed stepped closer.
“What happened next?”
“Mom started meeting with lawyers.”
“Names?”
“I know one. Jonathan Voss.”
Sebastian swore.
I knew that name.
Voss was the Bennett family’s trust attorney.
He had handled Sebastian’s father’s estate.
“Anything else?” Reed asked.
Camille hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“Mom became obsessed with the trust.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“She has known about the trust our whole lives.”
“Not this clause.”
“What clause?”
Camille swallowed.
“The morality clause.”
Silence.
Sebastian frowned.
“There isn’t a morality clause.”
“Yes, there is.”
“No.”
“I saw it.”
She opened her phone.
Another photograph.
Sebastian read.
Then sat slowly.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He handed me the phone.
The language was complicated.
But the meaning wasn’t.
If Sebastian’s first child was born while either biological parent was legally deemed incapable, deceased, criminally compromised or medically unfit, temporary controlling authority over the child’s trust interest could pass to a qualified senior family trustee.
Margaret.
I stared at the document.
“They needed me gone.”
Camille whispered, “Or discredited.”
“And Sebastian?”
Reed asked.
“What about him?”
Camille looked at her brother.
“That’s Phase Two.”
Sebastian stiffened.
“What did she plan for me?”
Camille started crying.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Camille.”
“I heard Mom and Voss arguing.”
“What did he say?”
She wiped her eyes.
“He said, ‘If Sebastian discovers what you did to Valerie, he becomes a liability.’”
The room went silent.
Sebastian’s voice became barely audible.
“What did she say?”
Camille looked at him.
“She said Phase Two had already been handled.”
Sebastian took a step backward.
Then grabbed his chest.
I sat upright.
“What’s wrong?”
His face twisted.
“My heart.”
He dropped to one knee.
Dr. Ortiz rushed in as alarms erupted.
Nurses pushed me back while they lifted Sebastian onto another bed.
His pulse was dangerously irregular.
Within minutes, they rushed him toward emergency cardiology.
Before the elevator doors closed, Sebastian looked at me.
Terrified.
And suddenly I remembered something.
Every morning for the last six months, Margaret had personally sent Sebastian a bottle of the same “heart-health supplement.”
Every morning.
Without fail.
I grabbed Detective Reed’s arm.
“His vitamins.”
“What?”
“The supplements his mother sends him.”
Reed’s eyes sharpened.
“What about them?”
“Find them.”
Two hours later, toxicology called.
They weren’t vitamins.
May you like
They contained a prescription medication capable of triggering dangerous cardiac arrhythmias when taken repeatedly.
And according to the pharmacy records, the prescription had been purchased under my name.
Related Stories
