Chapter 4 - The Baked Goods Incident
For three agonizing seconds, neither of us breathed.
The kitchen was so quiet I could hear the blood rushing in my ears—a high, sharp whine that drowned out the hum of the fridge. Lydia’s eyes dropped from my face down to my hand, where the school letterhead was still clutched in my white-knuckled grip.
The shock on her face vanished, replaced with an expression so cold and predatory it didn't look like my sister at all. It looked like a stranger wearing her skin.
“You’re up late, Cassie,” she said, her voice dropping into a smooth, conversational purr that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “Looking for a midnight snack? Or are you just snooping through things that don’t belong to you?”
I didn't lower the paper. I held it out slightly, letting the dim light hit the faded purple letterhead. “What is this, Lydia?”
She took a slow step forward, setting her glass of water down on the kitchen island with a soft clink. She didn't look flustered. She looked bored. Like an adult dealing with a toddler who had wandered into a restricted area.
“Put that back,” she said softly.
“I asked you what it is.”
“It’s trash. Ancient history. Mom and Dad’s problem from twenty-seven years ago.” She reached out, her fingers twitching as if she wanted to snatch it from my grip, but she stopped herself, keeping her hands at her sides. “You always had to dig through things, didn’t you? Can’t let anything lie. Every surface has to be turned over, every closet has to be raided.”
“You tried to kill me,” I said. The words came out flat, stripped of all emotion because my brain simply lacked the bandwidth to process the magnitude of what I was holding. “At the bake sale. You brought those brownies. You knew.”
Lydia sighed—a heavy, theatrical exhalation of pure annoyance. She leaned her hip against the counter, crossing her arms over her silk robe.
“Oh, please. Don’t be so melodramatic. I was nine years old.”
“You knew I was allergic.”
“I knew everyone paid attention to you.” Her voice didn't waver. There was no remorse, no shame, not even a defensive tremor. Just a dull, hardened resentment that had apparently curdled into something monstrous over the decades. “Every single day of my childhood was Cassandra can’t eat this, Cassandra has to go to the doctor for that, watch out for Cassandra, don’t make a mess where Cassandra might breathe. You sucked all the oxygen out of this house before I was even old enough to form memories.”
“So you put cashews in the brownies.”
“I wanted to see if you were lying,” she spat, her eyes flashing with a sudden, venomous heat. “Everyone coddled you. I wanted to see if it was real, or if you were just acting out for attention. And guess what? It was real. But nobody cared about what I did because you were the poor, fragile sick child lying in the ICU with Mom crying over your pillows.”
I stared at her, the room tilting slightly on its axis.
This wasn’t just sibling rivalry. This wasn’t normal childhood cruelty. This was a psychopath sharing my DNA, nurtured and protected by parents who decided that sweeping attempted murder under the rug was easier than dealing with a broken family dynamic.
“You stole my EpiPen,” I said, connecting the dots with horrifying clarity. “When I arrived yesterday. You didn't just forget about it. You took it out of my bag because you wanted to run the exact same experiment you ran when we were nine.”
Lydia’s lips parted into a slow, chilling smile.
“I didn't steal it, Cassie. I just relocated it. For safekeeping. You know how careless you are with your belongings.” She pushed off the counter and stepped closer, invading my personal space. She was shorter than me, but tonight she felt ten feet tall. “And you know what the best part is? If anything happens to you while you’re visiting your poor, dying father... well. Who’s going to question a tragic accident? It’s just your old allergy acting up again. The doctors in Boston warned you about stress, didn’t they?”
The threat hung in the air between us, thick and toxic.
She wasn't just stealing Dad’s money. She was clearing the board. With Dad incapacitated and me dead of an “accidental” exposure, she would inherit the house, the land, the insurance payouts, and whatever liquid assets were left without a single person standing in her way.
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
“I’m practical,” she corrected, her hand darting out with terrifying speed.
Before I could dodge, she swiped at the paper in my hand. I jerked my arm back, but her fingernails caught the corner, ripping the letterhead cleanly in half. She scrambled backward, clutching the torn fragment to her chest like a prize.
“Give it back, Lydia.”
“Or what?” She sneered, holding the paper behind her back. “You’ll scream? Go ahead. Wake Mom up. Tell her I’m being mean to you. See who she believes.”
I didn't lunge for her. I didn't scream.
I looked past her shoulder, directly at the top shelf of the wooden bookshelf in the far corner of the kitchen.
The tiny black disc of the security camera sat tucked between the oversized Better Homes and Gardens volumes, its infrared lens blinking a faint, steady green in the dark.
Lydia followed my gaze, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the kitchen. She didn't see the camera—it was too well hidden, blending seamlessly into the dark shadows of the shelf.
“Get out of my kitchen, Cassandra,” she hissed, backing away toward the hallway. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll pack your bags tomorrow morning and go back to Boston. Because if you stay here... I promise you won’t survive the week.”
She turned on her heel and glided out of the room, her silk robe whispering against the floorboards.
I stood alone in the dark kitchen for a long, quiet minute. My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip the edge of the refrigerator to steady myself.
May you like
She thought she had won. She thought the torn piece of paper in her hand was the only evidence of her crimes.
She had no idea the lens on the top shelf had recorded every single second of our conversation, crystal clear, audio and video.
