Chapter 3: The Locked Cabinet**
By midnight, the house had settled into an uneasy silence. The grandfather clock in the foyer ticked with mechanical indifference. David slipped out of his bed without making a sound, wearing dark clothes and carrying a small utility knife from his old toolkit.
He moved silently down the hall to the guest room at the far end. Eleanor was a notoriously deep sleeper once she finally turned off her bedside lamp. David bypassed her bedroom door and slipped into the adjacent private bathroom she had claimed as her own.
The air smelled heavily of lavender bath salts. On the vanity sat expensive moisturizers and vintage perfume bottles. David inspected the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. Standard over-the-counter pain relievers, vitamins, and antacids lined the shelves—nothing out of the ordinary.
He dropped to his knees and examined the vanity's lower cabinets. Behind a stack of plush towels, his fingers struck something hard: a locked vintage wooden jewelry box.
Using the thin blade of his utility knife, David wedged it against the small brass latch. With a quiet, metallic *snap*, the lock gave way.
Inside lay no gold or pearls. Instead, he found three amber prescription bottles with peeled-off labels. Beside them was a small brass mortar and pestle, stained with fine white residue, and an old leather-bound ledger.
David opened the ledger. Written in Eleanor’s elegant cursive handwriting were dates, dosages, and meticulous observations spanning two years.
*Oct 14: Sarah complaining of mild dizziness. Increased evening dose by 5mg.* *Nov 02: Sarah’s heart rate irregular. Doctor suspected stress.* *March 12: Emma showing initial symptoms of lethargy.*
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David’s breath hitched in his throat. The room spun around him. Sarah hadn’t died of natural causes. Her own mother had systematically poisoned her. And now, Eleanor was starting on Emma.
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