Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Well
Mark froze, his gaze locked on the open purse. The amber bottle inside Evelyn’s bag was the exact same brand, the exact same industrial manufacturer, as the empty, scraped vial he had found under the sofa cushion. His blood ran instantly cold, a sick, hollow dread dropping into his stomach.
"Mom," Mark said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "Why is your sleeping medication unzipped on the counter?"
Evelyn’s back stiffened beneath her navy blouse. She shut the water off with a deliberate flick of her wrist, dried her fingers on a linen towel, and turned around slowly. Her eyes were hard as granite.
"I have insomnia, Mark. You know this. I travel with my medication. What are you insinuating?"
"Elena’s doctor refused to prescribe her Zolpidem because she was nursing," Mark said, the puzzle pieces clicking together with sickening speed. "She told me she couldn't sleep because the anxiety was eating her alive, but she promised she would never take anything that could pass into Clara's milk. Why was your bottle in the living room? Why was there an empty bottle under her cushion?"
Evelyn sighed, an expression of profound pity crossing her face, as though she were speaking to a slow child. "She asked for help, Mark. She begged for it. She was weeping, pacing the floor, ignoring the baby. She told me she just needed twelve hours of uninterrupted silence or she was going to lose her mind."
"So you gave it to her?" Mark shouted, Clara flinching in his arms. "You gave her an entire bottle of heavy sedatives?"
"I gave her two tablets in a small glass of water," Evelyn countered, stepping forward, her chin lifted high. "What she had hidden in her own sofa is her business, not mine. If your wife has secret addictions, Mark, you should have paid closer attention to your marriage instead of spending sixty hours a week at the firm."
The cruelty in her words was so casual, so polished, that Mark felt entirely disoriented. He looked down at the blue bag again. Through the translucent plastic of Evelyn's prescription bottle on the counter, he could see it was nearly full.
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"If you only gave her two tablets," Mark murmured, "then where did the empty bottle come from? The bottle with the label scraped off with a paring knife?"
Evelyn’s eyes flickered toward the kitchen drawer by the sink—the drawer where the cutlery was kept. The movement was barely a fraction of a second, but Mark caught it.
