The screen went black, leaving only my own stunned reflection staring back at me. I let my hand fall, the phone dropping onto the bedspread. The betrayal wasn’t just from the man I had built a life with. It had crept in, gnawed at, and corrupted the child I had brought into this world. He had turned her into an accomplice, a hostage to keep me trapped in this charade of filial piety. That night, the house was submerged in silence. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, Michael’s lies piercing my mind like tiny needles. I knew I couldn’t just lie here and wait for the inevitable. I had to find out the truth behind this fake trip to the Hamptons and the real motive for wanting his own father dead.
I crept out of my bedroom and down the dark hallway to Michael’s home office. This room was a forbidden zone. He always kept it locked and had strictly forbidden me or the cleaning lady he had recently let go from ever entering, citing the need to protect confidential company documents. Standing before the heavy wooden door, I took a deep breath, my heart pounding like a thief’s in my own home. The lock was a smart lock requiring a keypad code. I recalled the times I’d seen him open it. He was always careful to shield the keypad, but once I had caught a glimpse of him entering a sequence of numbers very quickly. It wasn’t my birthday, nor Khloe’s. Michael was a narcissist. He loved himself above all else. I tried the date he was promoted to regional manager, the day he considered the crowning achievement of his life. Beep beep beep. The error sound echoed in the silent night, making me jump wrong. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pajamas, trying to stay calm. I remembered a small detail. Whenever Michael got drunk, he would boast about the day he landed me, seeing it as a conquest, the date we first met. With trembling fingers, I punched in those fateful numbers. Click. The sound of the deadbolt disengaging was like a gunshot next to my ear. I sighed in relief and pushed the door open. A wave of cold, stale air rushed out. Inside, everything was meticulously organized, sterile, clean, and cold, just like its owner. Pale moonlight streamed through a gap in the blinds, illuminating a glossy mahogany desk and a floor toseeiling bookshelf. I didn’t dare turn on the lights, using only my phone’s flashlight.
After my experience finding the cameras in Arthur’s room, I began scanning this one. A horrifying realization dawned on me. Michael had installed cameras even in his most private sanctuary. One was hidden behind a snake plant on his desk, another tucked between the spines of books on a high shelf. Why? Why would someone monitor their own office? The only answer was a pathological level of paranoia. He trusted no one, not even himself. Or perhaps he feared someone would sneak in here to uncover the dark secrets he was hiding. I knew I was walking a tight rope. Those electronic eyes could be recording me, but I had prepared for this. I had flipped the main circuit breaker for this floor, citing a common tripped breaker issue in older homes, leaving only the priority power source for Arthur’s room active. Without electricity, the cameras were useless, at least for a short while.
I approached the desk and started searching. The drawers were locked. I didn’t have a key. My eyes fell on the expensive leather executive chair. I remembered once while cleaning, I saw Michael frequently fidgeting with something underneath it when he was deep in thought. I got on my knees and shown the light under the chair’s caster base. Sure enough, in a tiny crevice between the swivel mechanism and the chair leg, a small shiny metal object was held in place with black electrical tape. Holding my breath, I used my fingernail to peel back the tape. A tiny cold key fell into my palm. It didn’t look like a standard drawer key. It seemed to be for some kind of specialty lock.
I stood up and swept the flashlight across the bookshelf. Hundreds of books on economics and business management were lined up perfectly. But my gaze stopped on a thick leatherbound volume titled The Encyclopedia of Classical Architecture placed centrally on a prominent shelf. Michael was a pragmatist. He had never shown any interest in architecture until recently, around the same time he brought home that monstrous diffuser. I pulled the book out. It was incredibly heavy, far heavier than a normal book. When I shook it gently, there was no rustle of paper inside, only the solid thud of a dense object. I opened the cover. There were no pages. Instead, there was a cold metal plate with a small keyhole in the center. It was a mini safe ingeniously disguised as a book. I inserted the key. With a soft click, the safe’s lid sprang open. Inside, there was no cash or jewelry, only a neatly clipped stack of documents. My hands trembled as I picked them up and read them under the flashlight beam.
The first page made my knees weak. It wasn’t a life insurance policy, as I might have guessed. It was a handwritten promisory note. The handwriting was sloppy, but the number was shockingly clear. $2 million. The borrower was listed as Michael Peterson. The lender was a finance company with a fancy name, but I knew it was a front for Lone Sharks. The interest was calculated daily, and the compounding figure had already reached an astronomical sum. The payment deadline was in 3 days. The next document was a detailed zoning map of a piece of property Arthur had inherited from his parents in his hometown, a piece of land he had always preserved as the family estate. It was now slated for an eminent domain buyout to make way for a new highway. The estimated compensation value was in the tens of millions, and the final document, the one that felt like a vice squeezing my heart, was a pre-drafted will. In it, Arthur, the man lying unconscious in his bed, was declared to be of sound mind and body, bequething his entire estate, his sole asset to his son, Michael Peterson. Arthur’s signature at the bottom was shaky and distorted, clearly written by someone guiding his non-dominant hand while he was incapacitated. But there was more. Tucked underneath was a do not resuscitate DNR order signed by the legal guardian, me. My signature was forged so perfectly that even I was startled by its authenticity.
The horrifying truth hit me. Michael didn’t just want to kill his father to inherit his property and pay off his debts. He wanted to make me his accomplice, the person who signed the death warrant for his own father-in-law. He had planned everything. A monstrous scheme that threw both his wife and his father under the bus to save himself from his massive debt. Hot, salty tears streamed down my face. I bit my lip hard to keep from crying out in anguish. Behind the facade of the successful model husband was a desperate debter, a monster bearing its fangs, ready to devour his closest loved ones. I shakily replaced the papers, feeling as if I were handling death sentences. As I did, my fingers brushed against a hard object at the bottom of the safe. It was a professional-grade digital voice recorder, the compact kind with a large storage capacity that business people often use. I picked it up, my palm slick with cold sweat. Why would Michael hide this so carefully with these life or death documents? Perhaps he used it to record important evidence. Or maybe it was some kind of insurance policy for his shady dealings.
I plugged in my earbuds and pressed play. A burst of static. Then voices became clear.
“Michael, what’s the right dosage? If we hit him too hard and he goes too fast, the cops will get suspicious.”
