Chapter 2 - The Taste of One's Own Poison
Vanessa fought like a feral cat, her French-tipped nails raking across my forearms, but adrenaline had turned my muscles into steel cables. The dark, tainted liquid splashed against her teeth, soaking into her tongue, spilling over her painted chin and running in violent crimson streaks down the front of her designer silk gown.
She gagged, coughing frantically, but the backward tilt of her neck forced her reflexively to swallow a massive mouthful before she managed to twist sideways, violently knocking the rim away.
The crystal glass plummeted to the Italian marble floor, shattering into hundreds of glistening, jagged teeth.
A dark red stain bloomed across the white stone like a murder scene.
I released my grip on her hair instantly. Vanessa collapsed to her hands and knees directly onto the damp marble, dry-heaving violently, clawing at the back of her throat with two fingers.
"You psycho!" she wheezed, her vocal cords raw from wine and panic. "Daniel! She tried to poison me! Call the police! Call an ambulance!"
Daniel stood paralyzed against the edge of the sideboard, his hands shaking so violently he dropped his phone twice before kicking it under a chair. He looked between his retching mistress and me, his eyes wide with animal terror.
"Claire... Claire, what have you done?" he gasped, his voice cracking into a high pitch. "Are you out of your mind? She was just joking around! It was a vitamin supplement—it was an electrolyte packet for your fatigue!"
I didn't answer him. Instead, I calmly walked over to the buffet table.
Sitting right beside the silver corkscrew was the tiny glassine wrapper Vanessa had dropped. It still held a dusting of white, crystalline residue. I slipped a clean linen napkin from a ring, carefully picked up the wrapper by its edges without touching the surface, and placed it inside an airtight silver-embossed mint tin I pulled from my clutch.
Daniel watched me, his breath hitching. "What... what are you doing with that?"
"Preserving the chain of custody, Daniel," I said coolly.
He took a step toward me, his brow furrowing as a sudden, horrific realization dawned on him. "Chain of custody? What are you talking about?"
"You spent the last five years telling your corporate buddies that I gave up my career because I couldn't handle the pressure of the district attorney's office," I said, sliding the tin safely into my purse and snapping the clasp shut. "You told your mother I was fragile. You told yourself I was just your dutiful, quiet little socialite wife. You forgot who I was before I signed your marriage license."
I stepped around the puddle of wine, leaning down until I was level with Vanessa. Her face was already turning an alarming shade of mottled red. Sweat beaded along her hairline. Her pupils, when she raised her eyes to glare at me, were visibly dilating into black saucers.
Whatever was in that powder, it acted with terrifying speed when swallowed in full concentration.
"How much did you put in that glass, Vanessa?" I asked softly.
"Screw... screw you," Vanessa slurred, her tongue already beginning to sound thick, like she was speaking through wet cotton. She tried to push herself up, but her arms gave out beneath her. Her chin hit the marble with a dull *thud*. "Danny... help me. My heart... it's beating in my ears."
"Daniel," I said without looking back. "If you don't call 911 in the next thirty seconds, your little executive plaything might suffer a fatal cardiac arrhythmia right here on my grandmother’s rug. And when the tox screen comes back, who do you think they’ll charge as an accessory to attempted murder? The wife who was upstairs getting dressed, or the husband whose fingerprints are on the wine bottle?"
Daniel’s chest heaved. He scrambled across the floor, on his hands and knees, clawing under the chair for his dropped iPhone. His fingers fumbled across the screen.
"Yes! Operator! 911!" he screamed into the receiver. "I need an ambulance! Twelve Crestview Manor! My... my colleague has ingested an unknown chemical!"
While he blabbered frantically to the emergency dispatcher, I walked over to the entryway intercom and pressed the master call button that connected directly to the private security guardhouse at the base of our gated driveway.
"Garrison," I said clearly.
"Yes, Mrs. Sterling?" the guard answered immediately.
"There is an emergency call originating from our residence. Direct the EMTs to the front circle immediately upon arrival," I instructed. "And Garrison? Call the precinct captain, Arthur Hayes. Tell him Claire Montgomery needs him at the house personally. Code four. Immediately."
There was a slight pause. Captain Hayes had been my lead homicide investigator during my four years prosecuting syndicate narcotics in the state attorney's office. He owed me his third star.
"Right away, ma'am," Garrison confirmed.
I hung up the receiver and turned back to the dining room.
Vanessa was now lying on her side, trembling uncontrollably. Her designer dress was soaked in cabernet and bile. Her breathing had descended into a wet, ragged rattle. Daniel was kneeling beside her, uselessly patting her shoulder, tears of pure, self-preserving panic streaming down his manicured face.
"Claire, please," Daniel begged, looking up at me like a dog expecting a kick. "We can handle this privately. We can say it was an accident! We can tell Hayes it was a bad reaction to prescription pills! If this gets out, the firm... the board... I'll be ruined!"
I looked down at the man I had shared a bed with for a decade. I felt no rage. I felt no heartbreak. The sheer enormity of their audacity had incinerated every trace of grief within me, leaving behind only the cold, sharp precision of a courtroom tactician.
"You aren't going to be ruined tonight, Daniel," I said softly, checking the antique diamond watch on my wrist. "Tonight is just the arraignment. The ruin comes later."
May you like
Outside, the first wail of sirens pierced the quiet, wealthy stillness of the evening air.
***
