I barely slept. At dawn, I took the box straight to the hospital—but not to Daniel.
To the police station first.
I told them about the note, the recordings, the photographs, the threats. I told them my son had collapsed while alone with his father, and that his father suddenly couldn’t explain what happened without crying harder than speaking. The detective didn’t promise anything, but he listened. That mattered.
Back at the hospital, Daniel stood beside Andrew’s bed like a grieving saint.
The sight of him made something inside me harden.
“How’s my boy?” he asked, voice breaking.
I looked at him differently now. Not as the man I once married. Not as Andrew’s father in pain. But as a man who knew more than he was saying.
“He’s still here,” I said. “And truth has a way of staying alive too.”
For the first time, Daniel looked afraid.
By evening, the police had enough to bring him in for questioning. It turned out Andrew had discovered Daniel was involved in a prescription pill scheme with a friend from work—illegal sales, hidden debts, desperate choices. Andrew had confronted him during their walk. Daniel admitted they argued. He swore he never meant for Andrew to get hurt, only that Andrew had become dizzy after Daniel handed him a bottled drink “to calm down.”
The drink was tested.
It had been tampered with.
