I stared at Tobias beneath the abandoned pier, shivering so violently that my teeth hurt.
“What do you mean, putting something into my body?”
Tobias glanced toward the riverbank before answering. Garrett and Penelope were still visible through gaps between the concrete pillars. Garrett was speaking into his phone while Penelope kept staring at the place where our SUV had disappeared.
“The milk,” Tobias said.
My stomach tightened.
Every night for almost three years, Garrett had brought me warm milk before bed. When I traveled, he packed supplements into small labeled containers and reminded me to take them.
“He was poisoning me?”
“Not exactly. At least, not enough to kill you quickly.”
Tobias reached inside his waterproof pouch and produced a tiny plastic evidence bag containing two white capsules.
“I switched these with Garrett’s pills three weeks ago. I had them tested privately.”
“What were they?”
“A sedative combined with another compound that can cause confusion, memory problems, weakness, and abnormal blood results if taken repeatedly.”
Suddenly, dozens of moments returned to me differently: mornings when I woke unable to remember conversations from the previous evening, meetings where Garrett insisted I had approved decisions I couldn’t recall making, medical appointments he always attended with me.
And signatures.
God.
There had been documents.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know how far Garrett’s network reached.” Tobias’s expression hardened. “And because you trusted him more than you trusted me.”
That hurt because it was true.
A vehicle pulled up on the shore.
A black sedan.
Garrett hurried toward it.
A gray-haired man stepped out.
I recognized him immediately.
Victor Hale—our family attorney.
The man who had handled my parents’ estate.
The man who had sat beside me at their funeral while twelve-year-old me cried into his coat.
“No,” I whispered.
Victor handed Garrett a folder.
Penelope opened it and smiled.
Tobias quietly removed a small pair of binoculars from his pouch and passed them to me.
Through the rain, I could barely make out the first page.
Then Garrett turned it slightly.
My name was printed across the top.
ROSALIND MERCER—INCAPACITY TRANSFER AUTHORIZATION.
My hands began trembling.
“What is that?”
Tobias’s face went grim.
“If you were declared mentally or physically incapacitated, Garrett could temporarily control your voting shares in Mercer Maritime.”
“But I’m not incapacitated.”
Tobias looked at me.
“That’s what the drugs were for.”
My lungs suddenly felt too small.
Then Victor pulled out another document.
Penelope signed it.
Garrett kissed her forehead.
But before Victor closed the folder, the wind lifted one page toward us.
At the bottom was a date.
Fifteen years earlier.
The exact day our parents died.
Beside it was a signature I recognized immediately.
Our father’s.
Tobias went completely still.
“That’s impossible,” he whispered.
“Why?”
His eyes remained fixed on the shore.
“Because Dad supposedly signed that document six hours after he was already dead.”
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