Chapter 6 - The Turncoat
While the police were mobilizing, an unexpected visitor requested permission to see me.
The nurse buzzed Michael’s phone. "Mrs. Miller, there is an elderly woman down in the lobby claiming to be your maternal aunt. Evelyn Miller-Ross. She insists she has physical evidence relevant to the incident."
I looked at Michael in astonishment. Aunt Evelyn was my mother’s older sister, but she had been exiled from family gatherings nearly a decade ago after she publicly called Harold an "insufferable grifter" at Arthur’s funeral.
"Send her up," I told the nurse. "With two security guards outside the door."
Five minutes later, Aunt Evelyn walked in. At seventy-two, she was as sharp-tongued and hawk-eyed as ever, dressed in a sensible tweed coat and carrying a vintage floral carpetbag. She didn't offer any sweet pleasantries. She walked straight to my bedside, took one look at my pale face and the monitors, and let out a long, disgusted sigh.
"Linda and Harold have finally done it," Evelyn said, her voice gravelly and firm. "They’ve finally crossed from being everyday narcissists into full-blown monsters."
"Aunt Evelyn," I said, tears pricking my eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"I’m doing what Arthur should have done thirty years ago," she said, unzipping her carpetbag. "I’m putting an end to Harold’s reign of terror."
She pulled out a zip-top plastic bag containing an iPhone with a shattered screen protector—Michael’s phone.
Michael surged forward. "Where did you get that?"
"Linda called me last night at midnight," Evelyn said, crossing her arms. "Hysterical. Begging me to come over and take a bag of trash to my house in the country because 'the police were harassing them.' She told me Michael had lost his mind and attacked them. But I know my sister. Linda couldn't tell the truth if her life depended on it. So I drove to their house, took the bag, and before I tossed it in my trunk, I looked inside."
She pulled out a second item from her bag: an external digital video recorder drive.
"Harold’s house has a local closed-circuit security system," Evelyn explained with a vicious smirk. "The one he told the police had a 'cloud synchronization error.' Harold is an idiot who thinks deleting an app from his iPad deletes the hard drive in his basement crawlspace. I went down to the wine cellar while Linda was packing Erica’s jewelry, unhooked the DVR, and took it."
Michael took the drive with hands that were shaking with adrenaline. He connected it to his laptop using a universal adapter cable.
The screen flickered. The file directory opened.
*Camera 01 - Dining Room - 11/28 - 18:00 to 18:30.*
Michael clicked play.
The high-definition video was crystal clear. It had full audio.
The screen showed our arrival. It showed the tension around the table. It showed me standing up, smiling, taking Michael’s hand, and announcing: *"We're twelve weeks pregnant."*
The camera captured Erica’s face in stunning, terrifying detail. There was no confusion. There was no panic.
Her face twisted into a mask of pure, concentrated malice. She deliberately picked up the teapot, filled a mug with boiling liquid, and walked around the table.
The audio from the ceiling mic picked up every single whisper:
*“Are you sure it's real? Or are you just seeking attention again?”*
Then, she deliberately stuck her foot beneath the edge of the oriental rug, angled the mug, and dumped the scalding tea directly across my thighs.
As I screamed, dropping my hands to my legs, Erica stepped forward, grabbed the back of the dining chair for leverage, and kicked her heavy winter boot straight between my hip bones.
The video captured everything. It captured Harold lunging to tackle Michael when Michael tried to pull her away. It captured Linda running to the entryway to snatch Michael’s phone from his coat pocket on the coat rack. It captured Harold deliberately punching himself in the cheek against the edge of the grandfather clock while Linda staged the room.
"My God," I whispered, bile rising in my throat. "They staged the whole thing while I was lying unconscious on the floor."
May you like
"They're going to prison, Sarah," Aunt Evelyn said, placing a warm, wrinkled hand over mine. "Every single one of them."
***
