Chapter 1 - The Pattern That Led Back to Him
The meals he made me. The drinks he handed me. His sudden fascination with my calendar. The way my sister Priya kept showing up whenever I was out of town.
Priya had always smiled too tight whenever anyone praised me. Growing up on the South Side, she resented every award I brought home, every teacher who called me talented, every dollar of success that came after I turned a small loan into a company worth millions.
I thought she'd grown past it.
Then one evening I came home early and found her sitting far too close to Marcus on our couch.
They jumped apart like teenagers caught red-handed.
"Family conversation," Marcus said, way too bright.
Priya wouldn't even look at me.
That night I went through the browsing history on our home computer. My hands went cold before I finished scrolling.
Searches on untraceable poisons. On deaths that look natural. On life insurance payouts and transferring business ownership after a spouse dies.
I printed every page and hid them in my office on the fortieth floor of the Willis Tower.
The next day I bought three small wireless cameras from a shop in Wicker Park. One went behind the coffee canister in the kitchen. One went into Marcus's basement workshop, tucked between paint cans. One sat behind a framed photo on the living room bookshelf.
For three days, nothing. Boring footage — coffee, TV, his laptop. I started wondering if the stress of running three cities' worth of hotels had finally cracked me.
Then Thursday afternoon, my phone buzzed with an alert while I was reviewing profit reports from Beverly Hills.
I opened the feed. Priya, sitting on our couch with Marcus, far closer than a sister-in-law should sit. I turned up the volume.
"How much longer do we have to keep doing this?" Priya was saying, running her fingers through her hair. "I'm tired of pretending to care about Victoria."
Marcus took her hand, squeezed it. "Just a few more weeks, baby. The doctor said the arsenic has to build up slowly, or it'll look suspicious."
Arsenic.
"I've been putting it in her morning coffee and dinner for almost two months now," he went on. "She's losing weight, getting weaker every day. Soon it'll just look like stress. Overwork."
Priya leaned in and kissed him. Not a family kiss. The real thing.
"I can't wait till we can be together for real," she whispered. "Once Victoria's gone, we get all of it. The hotels, the money. We can finally get married. Live in that penthouse in Miami."
My own sister. Planning to marry my husband after they murdered me.
Marcus pulled out his phone, showed her something on the screen. "Look — I've been forging Victoria's signature on these. When she dies, you're listed as beneficiary instead of me. Nobody suspects the wife's sister."
"You're so smart," Priya said, kissing him again. "Victoria always thought she was the smart one. She has no idea what's happening right under her nose."
They kept talking — how they'd stage it as a heart attack from work stress, how they'd sell the Chicago properties and move to California together, how they'd been sleeping together for over a year while I was traveling for the business.
"Victoria got handed everything," Priya said, bitter. "The smart one, the successful one, the golden child. Well. Now it's my turn to have the perfect life."
I recorded every second, hands shaking with rage.
Then came the worst part.
"When do we give her the final dose?" Priya asked.
Marcus thought about it. "Tuesday. I'll put enough arsenic in her dinner to finish it in a few hours. Then I call 911, play the devastated husband who found his wife dead of a heart attack."
"And then we're free," Priya said, smiling like she was planning a vacation instead of a murder.
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She left through the back door so the neighbors wouldn't see her.
I sat in my office on the fortieth floor, staring out over Lake Michigan, and understood I had five days to figure out how to survive my own life.
