Chapter 10 - Messages in the Dark
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I continued scrolling through the burner phone, my anger mounting with every line of text.
Then I hit a series of messages dated eight months ago—two months before Pamela and I were married.
“Is he asking about Beatrice’s medical history?” Spencer had asked.
“No,” Pamela replied. “He still thinks her heart failure was purely genetic. He has no reason to suspect anything else.”
I froze.
My hands began to shake violently.
Beatrice’s medical history?
Beatrice had died suddenly at age thirty-one from acute cardiomyopathy. She had collapsed in our home while I was away on an international business trip. The coroner had ruled it natural causes due to an undetected congenital heart defect.
Why were Pamela and Spencer discussing Beatrice’s heart failure eight months ago?
I tapped on an audio file attachment sent from Spencer to Pamela around the same date. I plugged my encrypted earphones into the phone and pressed play.
Spencer’s recorded voice whispered through the earpiece:
“The compound we used on the mother left no trace in standard autopsy panels because the coroner didn't screen for synthetic digitalis analogs. Just make sure you don't use the same dosage on the kid. We need the kid alive and crazy, not dead.”
A brutal, crushing weight hit my chest. I couldn't breathe.
Beatrice hadn't died of natural causes.
Pamela hadn't just come into my life to steal a house. She had murdered my wife.
“Gregory? Gregory, talk to me!” Lincoln’s voice broke sharply through my earpiece. “Your heart rate monitor is spiking! What did you find?”
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I gripped the edge of the desk, forcing air back into my lungs, my vision swimming with red.
“She killed Beatrice,” I whispered, my voice breaking with sheer horror. “They poisoned my wife.”
