Chapter 3 - THE WRONG TARGET
Sarah stared at the label.
“That has my name on it.”
Detective Hale nodded.
“It does.”
Mark leaned closer.
“Why would Brenda write Sarah’s name on something she put in Noah’s bottle?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Sarah’s mind raced.
“What if the packet wasn’t originally meant for Noah?”
No one answered.
Detective Hale asked Sarah whether she had eaten or drunk anything Brenda had prepared that day.
Sarah immediately remembered the tea.
Brenda had arrived at eleven.
She had brought pastries.
Then she had insisted on making Sarah a cup of herbal tea.
Sarah had left it untouched because Noah started crying.
Elena’s face changed.
“The mug.”
They hurried home with officers.
The kitchen remained secured.
Sarah pointed toward the dining table.
Her cup was still there.
The tea had gone cold.
Detective Hale carefully collected it.
Mark looked increasingly shaken.
“Why would she target Sarah?”
Sarah turned toward him.
“That sounds like a question you should answer.”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure?”
Mark rubbed his face.
“There is one possibility.”
Sarah folded her arms.
“Go ahead.”
“If something happened to you, I would control Noah’s trust until he turned twenty-five.”
Sarah felt a wave of nausea.
“And if something happened to me and Noah?”
Mark looked away.
“Brenda is the next family beneficiary.”
Elena whispered, “Oh my God.”
Sarah’s voice became cold.
“So whether she targeted me or Noah, she benefits.”
Mark nodded slowly.
Sarah suddenly understood why Brenda had visited so often after William’s death.
Why she had repeatedly asked whether Sarah had updated her life insurance.
Why she joked about Sarah being “the guardian of the golden baby.”
Why she seemed so interested in Noah’s feeding schedule.
Sarah had dismissed every comment.
Now each one returned like a warning she had ignored.
Detective Hale asked Mark for Brenda’s addresses.
Mark gave him her downtown apartment and a lake house owned by the family.
Within the hour, officers went to both.
She was gone.
Her phone had been turned off.
Her credit cards had not been used since leaving Sarah’s house.
Brenda Caldwell had disappeared.
The next morning, Sarah woke after less than two hours of sleep.
Mark was sitting at the kitchen table.
A stack of documents covered the surface.
“What is that?”
“My father’s estate file.”
Sarah walked closer.
“Why do you have it here?”
“Because there’s something I didn’t tell the police.”
Sarah stopped.
Mark opened a folder.
“Two weeks before Dad died, he called me.”
“He said Brenda was desperate.”
“He wanted me to promise something.”
“What?”
“That if anything happened to him, I would protect you and Noah.”
Sarah stared at him.
“You didn’t think that was important yesterday?”
“I thought he was talking about legal pressure.”
Sarah slammed her palm onto the table.
“You keep deciding what I deserve to know.”
Mark lowered his head.
“I was wrong.”
Sarah turned away.
Then she noticed something beneath the folder.
A photograph.
William Caldwell stood beside a man Sarah did not recognize.
They were outside a storage facility.
On the back of the photograph, William had written a date.
Three days before his death.
Below the date were four words.
BRENDA KNOWS WHERE IT IS.
Sarah showed Mark.
“What is this?”
His face changed.
“I have no idea.”
Then Sarah’s phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Noah asleep in his crib.
Taken from outside the nursery window.
May you like
Below it was one message.
STOP LOOKING INTO THE WILL.
