I slid a thick manila folder across the table.
“A lot more than an affair.”
Sarah opened it. I watched her eyes widen at the toxicology report from Providence Medical Lab. Her jaw tightened at the emails between Jake and Marcus Brennan. Her face darkened with every page. The lab report dated February 19 showed the coffee sample contained fifteen milliliters of ipecac syrup per 250 milliliters—enough to cause chronic nausea, vomiting, dehydration, and severe weakness.
“Jesus,” Sarah muttered. “He’s been poisoning you for how long?”
“Three months. November through February. Every morning he made me coffee and put ipecac in it. I thought I was sick. I thought I was falling apart. The whole time he was weakening me so I’d be too exhausted to fight when he tried to steal the restaurant.”
Sarah flipped to the email chain between Jake and Marcus.
“Make sure she’s weak enough to sign before October 28th,” she read. Then: “ipecac is working. She’s losing weight and barely has energy.”
She set the papers down and looked at me with fury.
“This is attempted murder. Poisoning someone to coerce them is aggravated assault at minimum. We could be looking at attempted homicide.”
She tapped Marcus Brennan’s name.
“And Marcus goes down too. Conspiracy. Financial exploitation. Serious prison time.”
“There’s more,” I said, pulling out the forged divorce petition, the business valuation, the fake fertility documents Jake gave Maya even though he’d had a vasectomy years earlier, and photographs from the private investigator showing Jake and Maya at the Marriott, at restaurants, at Cannon Beach. Sarah went through everything methodically, taking notes, and when she finished, she exhaled slowly.
“This is one of the most thoroughly documented domestic abuse and fraud cases I’ve seen in ten years. Toxicology evidence. Emails. Financial records. Forged documents. Photographs.”
She met my eyes.
“Do you want me to arrest Jake right now?”
I shook my head.
“Benjamin says the evidence is strong, but still circumstantial in places. The lab proves ipecac was in the coffee, not that Jake put it there. The emails prove Marcus wanted the restaurant, not that Jake was actively coercing me in a way no lawyer could twist. If we arrest him now, his attorney will argue reasonable doubt.”
I leaned forward.
“I need direct evidence. Video of Jake poisoning my coffee. Audio of him admitting it. Or catching him committing a new crime. Something with no room for interpretation.”
Sarah nodded slowly.
“Then we set a trap. Hidden cameras in the house. Kitchen. Office. Anywhere he prepares food or makes private calls. Oregon is a one-party consent state. You can legally record conversations you’re part of, and you can record inside your marital home. Get him talking. Ask careful questions. Make him feel safe enough to confess without realizing it.”
She flipped back through the folder.
“What about Marcus and your sister?”
“Follow them. Document their meetings. If I can catch Jake, Marcus, and Maya together discussing the plan, that’s conspiracy between three people. Fraud. Theft. Maybe more.”
Sarah squeezed my hand, fierce and steady.
“We’re going to get him, Zoe. I promise. But you need to be smart and patient. If Jake finds out you’re onto him before we have airtight evidence, he could escalate. Poisoning you was already dangerous. If he panics, he might do something worse.”
She pulled out another card and wrote a second number on the back.
“That’s my personal cell. If anything happens, if you feel unsafe, if Jake threatens you, if anything goes wrong, call 911 first. Then call me.”
I nodded and took the card.
“Understood. Thank you, Sarah.”
She gave me a small smile.
“You’re stronger than you think. But I’m glad I can help.”
She stood and gathered the folder.
“I’m going to run background checks on Marcus Brennan and look into his financial ties to Jake. You buy cameras, set them up, and document everything. We’re building a case. And when we’re done…”
She paused, eyes hardening.
“Jake Carson is going to spend a very long time in prison.”
I watched her leave, and for the first time since my world cracked open, I felt something that almost resembled hope.
It was Wednesday night, February 28, quarter to ten, and I was sitting cross-legged on my bed with my laptop open, headphones in, watching footage from the hidden camera I installed four days earlier. The camera was tiny, smaller than a lipstick tube, tucked inside a picture frame on Jake’s desk—a wedding photo of us smiling like forever meant something. I bought it on Amazon for $89 with two-day shipping. It recorded both video and audio and saved everything to a cloud account Jake didn’t know existed.
Sarah told me to document everything.
So that’s what I did.
For four days I reviewed footage every night after Jake went to bed. Hours of him typing emails, making calls, scrolling through his phone. Most of it was useless.
But that night, I found something.
The timestamp read February 27, 2024, 2:47 p.m. I had been at Rosa’s Kitchen prepping for dinner service. Jake was alone in his office with his phone pressed to his ear. I turned up the volume.
“Rick, it’s Jake Carson. We met last month at the contractor meetup in Beaverton.”
There was a pause, then a muffled man’s voice.
“Yeah, I remember. What’s up?”
Jake leaned back in his chair.
“I need you to do a job for me. At a restaurant. Rosa’s Kitchen, 428 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard.”
“Okay… what kind of job?”
Jake’s voice stayed low and smooth.
“Gas line inspection. But I need you to do something specific. I need you to loosen one of the valves. Not much. Just enough so there’s a slow leak. Something that won’t be noticeable right away.”
Silence.
Then the man on the other end said, “You serious?”
“Dead serious. And I’ll pay you five thousand cash. No receipt. No paperwork. Just you, me, and the job.”
Another pause. Longer.
“If there’s a gas leak and someone’s inside—”
“That’s the point, Rick,” Jake cut in, his voice suddenly cold. Calm. “I need you to do this on the night of October 28th, around eight p.m. I’ll make sure she’s there alone in the kitchen after closing.”
My blood turned to ice.
“She?” Rick asked. “Who’s she?”
“My wife,” Jake said. “And I need to make sure she doesn’t walk out.”
I hit pause so fast I almost dropped the laptop.
My hands shook so violently I could barely control the mouse. I rewound ten seconds and played it again.
I need to make sure she doesn’t walk out.
I played it a third time. A fourth. A fifth. Each time the words hit me harder. Jake wasn’t just planning to steal Rosa’s Kitchen. He was planning to kill me. He was hiring someone to rig a gas leak, to blow up the restaurant with me inside.
I forced myself to keep watching.
Rick’s voice came back, quieter, uncertain.
“Man, I don’t know. That’s… that’s really dangerous. If somebody dies—”
“No one’s going to trace it back to you,” Jake said. “It’ll look like an accident. Old building. Faulty gas line. Tragic explosion. The fire marshal will rule it accidental. My wife will be gone. I’ll inherit the restaurant as her widower, and I’ll sell it the next day. Clean. Simple. And you’ll have five grand in your pocket.”
“I need to think about it,” Rick said finally.
“You’ve got until March 15,” Jake replied. “After that, the offer’s off the table. Call me.”
Then the line went dead.
Jake set his phone down, stretched, and went back to typing on his laptop like he hadn’t just tried to hire someone to murder me.
I closed the computer and sat there in the dark, staring at nothing.
October 28th.
That was eight months away.
Eight months Jake had been planning this. Eight months living beside me, kissing me, pretending to love me, all while plotting my death. I stumbled to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and looked in the mirror. The woman staring back at me looked like a stranger. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Terrified.
But beneath the fear there was something else.
Anger.
Hot. White. Burning.
Jake poisoned me for three months. Forged my signature. Conspired with Marcus Brennan to steal my grandmother’s restaurant. Slept with my sister. And now he was trying to kill me.
He wanted me gone. Erased. So he could take everything and start over with Maya.
No.
I went back to the bed, opened my laptop, and exported the video file. I saved three copies: one to my phone, one to a USB drive buried deep in my purse, and one to a private email account Jake didn’t know existed. Then I opened my messages and texted Sarah.
I have something. Can you meet tomorrow morning? It’s urgent.
She replied thirty seconds later.
7 a.m. My office. What is it?
