Chapter 3 - The Broken Glass
The next two hours were a blur of blinding white emergency room lights, sterile hospital smells, and the frantic squeak of rubber soles on linoleum floors.
Lily was rushed into a treatment room immediately. The doctors identified the drug in her system as a high-dose liquid sedative—a heavy prescription muscle relaxant combined with over-the-counter antihistamines. Her body temperature had reached 103.8 degrees, triggering mild seizures before they managed to flush her system and get an IV drip started.
Mason sat on a hospital gurney in the adjacent room, wrapped in a heated blanket, clutching a paper cup of warm water. He was shivering violently, not from cold, but from shock.
I sat between their rooms, my hands resting on my knees, staring at the floor. Detective Marcus Vance, a broad-shouldered man with tired eyes and a heavy trench coat, stood over me, writing in a small leather notebook.
"The man in the closet has been identified, Mr. Pendelton," Vance said softly, pulling up a plastic chair to sit opposite me. "His name is Julian Vance—no relation to me. He's a local auto mechanic."
"What was he doing locked in my son's house?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"Julian says your daughter-in-law, Marissa, hired him three days ago to do some off-the-books repairs on her sedan," Detective Vance explained. "When he arrived at the house late last night to drop off the keys, he overheard a violent argument between Brian and Marissa. When he tried to step in, Marissa hit him over the head with a heavy bronze statue. She and another unidentified man locked Julian in the closet."
My heart stopped. "Another man?"
"Yes," Vance said Grimly. "Julian claims there was a second male present in the house. Someone Marissa was working with."
"And the trunk?" I asked, my mind flashing back to Julian's desperate plea in the hallway. "What was in the trunk of the car in the garage?"
Detective Vance hesitated, taking a slow breath. He closed his notebook. "The garage was empty when my officers arrived, Arthur. The car Julian was talking about—a silver Hyundai—was gone."
"Where is my son, Vance?" I stood up, the chair scraping sharply against the tile floor. "Where is Brian?"
"Grandpa?"
I turned to see Mason standing in the doorway of his room, the hospital blanket trailing behind him like a cape. His face was pale, tears running down his smudged cheeks.
"Mason, buddy, you should be lying down," I said, stepping toward him and kneeling down so we were eye-to-eye.
"Grandpa," Mason whispered, grabbing my lapels. "Mom isn't taking us to Florida. She was mad at Dad because he found the papers."
"What papers, sweetie?"
"The papers in the locked box under their bed," Mason sobbed. "Dad was yelling. He said she was stealing from your company. He said he was going to tell you everything in the morning. Then Mom made him drink the tea."
A cold realization bloomed in my chest.
Three years ago, after my wife Carol passed away, I had given Brian signing authority on my small commercial real estate firm's accounts. I had trusted him completely. But over the last year, Marissa had taken over managing his schedules, his mail, his finances—slowly cutting him off from me, creating tiny arguments between us so we spoke less and less.
It wasn't a family vacation. It was an execution of a plan. Marissa had been embezzling money from my business, and when Brian discovered it, she silenced him.
"Sir," a nurse called out, stepping out of Lily's room. "She's waking up. She's asking for you."
I hurried into Lily's room. Her cheeks were no longer dangerously red, but her eyes were heavy with fatigue. The heart monitor beeped rhythmically beside her bed.
"Grandpa," she murmured as I took her small, cold hand in mine.
"I'm right here, baby. You're safe. The doctors fixed you up."
"Mommy took Dad," Lily whispered, a single tear slipping down her temple. "She put him in the big black box in the back of the truck. Dad was sleeping. He wouldn't answer me."
I squeezed my eyes shut as a wave of fury and grief washed over me.
Marissa hadn't just drugged the kids to go on a trip. She had poisoned my son, locked her daughter away to die of an overdose or hyperthermia, stuffed her son in a closet, and dragged my unconscious child into the night.
"Detective," I said, turning to Vance, who had followed me into the room. "Check the security cameras on Route 9. Check the toll booths heading north."
May you like
Vance pulled out his radio. "Why Route 9?"
"Because," I said, my teeth clenched so tight my jaw throbbed, "that's where Marissa's family owns an abandoned cabin. If she's hiding a body or waiting for a wire transfer to clear, that's where she went."
