Chapter 5

I waited until Dean went to the barn.

Then I locked myself in the laundry room, sat on the floor between the washer and the basket of wet towels, and opened the voice memo.

The file was now an hour and twelve minutes long. I had recorded through the bathroom, through the kitchen, through Priss’s threat about CPS, through the pantry. The phone had been in my pocket the whole time. The caregiver app had kept running, syncing to the hospice server whenever the Wi-Fi blinked on.

I dragged the playback bar to the very beginning.

4:31 p.m.

For a few seconds, there was nothing but wind and ice ticking. Then Dean’s voice, low and close to the milk-house door. “After the notary signs, Nessa can’t stop us.”

Priss: “She’s already suspicious.”

Dean: “Then keep her busy. I’ll handle the box.”

Priss: “You said she’d be at the school until five.”

Dean: “She came back early.”

A pause. Then Dean again: “The syringe is in the fridge. Don’t use it unless you have to.”

I stopped the recording.

The laundry room tilted. I put my hand over my mouth and pressed until I could breathe. The washer hummed. The towels smelled like mildew. Outside, the wind screamed through the eaves.

Dean. My husband. The man who had held me when my mother died. The man who had taught Emmie to ride a bike. The man who had promised we would never put Alma in a home. He had planned it. The notary. The sedation. The forged POA. The farm sale.

He had not come to the milk house to rescue me.

He had come to get the lockbox.

I played the next part. Priss’s voice: “She’ll fight.”

Dean: “She always fights. That’s why we need the syringe.”

Then the milk-house door scraped open. My own voice, small and tired: “You took her pills.” The recording kept going. Priss’s threat. The scuffle. The needle. The door slamming open. Dean’s “Nessa!” Priss’s lie. Dean’s “Step away from her.” Then his first question.

“Where’s your phone?”

I had heard it live. But hearing it in the recording was different. It was not a question. It was a search.

I sat there with my back against the washer until the laundry-room door opened.

Dean stood in the doorway. He looked tired. His flannel was unbuttoned, his hair damp. He had the same kind face he had always had. That was the worst part. He looked like my husband.

“There you are,” he said.

I held the phone against my chest.

“Nessa,” he said gently. “Give me the phone.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re upset. Because Priss is out of control. Because we need to handle this together.”

“Together,” I said. “Like you handled the syringe?”

His face did not change. Not at first. Then something behind his eyes shut down. The way a door closes when you know the room inside is on fire.

“Don’t play the beginning,” he said.

“I already did.”

He took a step closer. “Nessa.”

“You told her to use it if she had to.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“You said after the notary signs, I can’t stop you.”

He stopped. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The washer clicked through its cycle. The rain had turned to sleet, rattling the window like handfuls of gravel.

“Give me the phone,” he said again. “For Emmie.”

There it was. The threat hidden inside the plea. Not Priss’s threat this time. His.

I looked at the man I had married. I looked at the father of the child upstairs. I looked at the son of the woman he was trying to sell out from under herself.

“No,” I said.

Dean’s jaw worked. He reached for me. I ducked past him, through the kitchen, and out the back door into the freezing dark.