Chapter 42

Monday

"When is Mommy coming home?" Scarlett asked as we stepped into the apartment.

"Soon," I said. This time it didn't feel like a lie. When I was in my coma, I swore I knew she was beside me. I couldn't remember anything specific, but I just knew. And she'd know I was there today. She'd know that she couldn't give up. She'd hear my plea.

 I placed Scarlett down when I heard a knock on the door. "Go upstairs and get ready for bed, pumpkin," I said and ruffled her hair. "I'll be up to read you a bedtime story in a minute."

"Can we watch a movie instead?"

I smiled down at her. She usually fell asleep with her head on my lap when we watched movies. I understood that she didn't want to be alone tonight. "Of course. Go pick one out. I'll be there in a minute."

She walked away. Not her usual skip. No giggle. Don't change. Please don't let today hurt you. I needed to stay strong for her. Despite what I had said to Penny, I would never. Ever. Forget that my first job in life was as a father.

I turned around and opened the door.

"Mr. Hunter," Porter said. "I went through the footage from the past two days. There was nothing there. She didn't do it."

Any remaining doubt I had dissipated. "Then watch the past several weeks. If she didn't do it, that means someone poisoned her."

"I already watched a few days back. No one's come in or out of the house." He stepped forward and dropped his voice. "Could it have been someone at the wedding?"

"No."

"Or Ellen?"

I shook my head. I was done doubting my gut. "Ellen didn't do it. It isn't someone from the family. Keep watching the tapes. It has to be something you missed. During the time in between scans of the house."

He nodded. "How far back?"

"Until you find something."

"I'll call you when I've found it." He closed the front door and I heard the familiar lock. Could someone really have gotten into our house? How long did it take to go from the entrance of the apartment, up the elevator, and perform a successful lock-pick? I ran my fingers through my hair. I had to be missing something.

My phone buzzed. At first I thought it was Porter already. I eagerly answered the call.

"James," Matt said. "How are you holding up?"

"Not great." I looked in the other room at my daughter playing with the remote control. She had turned on the same Harry Potter movie that had scared her the other night. I was about to go stop her when Matt continued.

"Daphne called me. She told me about the poison. I agree with her, man. Penny was happy."

I closed my eyes. For some reason, I needed to hear that from him. If he had been hitting on her, that meant she had turned him down. If she thought I was cheating on her, would she have? It just further validated what Daphne had said. Penny didn't even suspect anything until her conversation with Rob. "Where were you today?" Most of the day was a blur, but I didn't remember seeing him at the hospital.

"Rob was having me talk to an investigator. Look, I know you're probably exhausted. But I had a thought. Well, the investigator had a thought. I can't take the credit. What if her first OB-GYN, the retired one, didn't tell you that she had a heart murmur because it really did disappear after Scarlett was born? Apparently it usually does after a baby is delivered."

"But it didn't. It's just gotten worse."

"No, not necessarily," he said. "No one knows if she had one between her pregnancies. It may have actually gone away. What I'm saying is, what if someone's been poisoning her for a while? What if her heart condition is caused by it too?"

A chill ran down my spine.

"Yeah, but who, Matt? No one comes in or out of my apartment without my security alerting me."

A knock on the door made me jump.

I answered it and Matt was standing there.

I slowly lowered my phone from my ear.

"Not necessarily. I just snuck by them," Matt said. "Whoever did it must have hacked into the webcam of one of their computers. He must have watched them not watching the surveillance footage. Well, technically, he probably saw that they were just glancing at it every five minutes."

I frowned and looked up at the camera mounted in the corner.

"See. There's a chink in your armor." He closed the door behind him. "Someone could have snuck in here and poisoned her. Easily."

I shook my head. "They'd only have a few minutes to pull it off. And if your theory is correct, they would have had to be poisoning her for a long time. Not just this once."

"Right. So what does Penny eat a lot?"

"Ice cream."

Matt smiled. "Do you mind if the investigator comes up? He had some ideas of what it could be. He's waiting downstairs."

"Yeah, of course. Bring him up." If Matt was right, it had to be something that didn't spoil. No one would risk coming in here several times. Penny's cravings had been erratic.

"Daddy," Scarlett said and tugged on my pants leg.

"Not now, pumpkin."

"But, Daddy, it's the snake."

"Scarlett, I've told you so many times. There are no evil snakes."

"Yes there are. It's Mr. Snake." She pointed to the T.V. screen, where she was paused in the middle of the movie.

It was paused on an image of Professor Snape.

"Pumpkin that isn't..." my voice trailed off as I studied the image. The long greasy hair. The black robe. The actor that played Professor Snape looked uncannily like Dr. Nelson. A slightly younger version, but very similar.

"Bad Snake." She pointed at the T.V. screen again.

"Do you mean Professor Snape?"

"Yes! Snapes!" She looked so excited, like she had been trying to explain this to me for weeks. "Snapes," she said and nodded. "Bad Snapes. Snapes hurt Mommy."

"How did Snape hurt Mommy?"

Scarlett pretended to pop something into her mouth, tilted her head back, and made a gulping noise. "For healthy baby."

"Her pills," I said and turned around to Matt. I thought about Dr. Nelson prescribing them the first time. To take them instead of her usual prenatal vitamins. Penny had complained about being tired that day. He said they would help. Then he upped the dose once she started having chest pains. Shit.

I ran into the kitchen and opened up the cabinet where she kept them. But they weren't there.

"Here," Matt said and lifted them off the counter. "Oh, fuck." He picked up a note that had been sitting next to them. "Ellen accidentally sent them with you to London. Penny didn't take them all weekend. She must have taken a whole bunch last night when she got home to make up for it."

"Let me see it," someone said from behind us. I turned around as Matt tossed him the bottle. I recognized the investigator. Rob and I had used him on other occasions. He had actually helped me get my divorce papers signed.

He unscrewed the cap and bit one of the gel capsules in half. Then he immediately spit it out. "That's it. Taking these over time would do some serious damage."

I recognized the pills as soon as the investigator pulled one out. I had taken them while I was in London. Really, I had thought nothing of it. I assumed Ellen had just picked up a different brand of vitamins. The side of my face twitched again. And for the first time since the plane landed, I felt relieved. It wasn't withdrawal. There was poison in my bloodstream too. I wasn't addicted to my wife. It suddenly felt like I could breathe again. I'm not addicted to her. I love her.

"James?" Matt said, pulling me out of my stupor. "What do you want us to do?"

"Call the police." I knelt down to Scarlett. "Scarlett, how did you know this?"

"It was my fault." Her bottom lip trembled. "I opened the door when he knocked. Even though I knew I wasn't supposed to open doors. Even though I promised you I wouldn't. I was bad."

"It's okay, pumpkin. You're not bad. Just tell me what happened." I put my hands on her shoulders.

"He gave Mommy new healthy baby medicine. And said that she needed it. And he made me promise not to tell. He said he'd kill Mommy if I told. But I was scared." Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "So I told Mommy about snakes right away. But no one believed me. I tried to whisper, but I had to say it over and over and over again. He must have heard me." She pointed up to the cameras. "He said he was watching. He said it would be fine and that everyone would think he was the best. But I knew it wasn't going to be fine. I tried to tell you." She started crying harder, unable to speak.

"Pumpkin." I pulled her into my arms, pressing her ear to the side of my face and covering her other one with my hand. "Get Porter to deactivate all the cameras," I said to Matt. "I need to get down to the hospital before he does something else."

Matt was still on the phone with the police, unable to listen to my request.

So I lifted Scarlett into my arms, ran out into the hallway, and down to the security office. I knocked on the door.

Porter looked alarmed when he opened it. Like he hadn't seen everything that just happened. Because he probably hadn't. Because I had told him to only glance every five minutes. Because Penny felt uncomfortable with them watching us. Because I didn't want them to see the curves of her body. Or me fucking her relentlessly. What had I been thinking?

Maybe I should have told him about the shooting pain in my left arm. Or the fact that I knew I had consumed some of the poison. But I was heading to the hospital anyway. So instead, I handed Scarlett to him. "Call the hospital. Dr. Nelson poisoned Penny. I should have seen it. He was the one that told us about the heart murmur in the first place. He made the whole thing up. He gave me the health records from her last OB-GYN. He probably fucking tampered with them!" How had I not seen any of the signs? "Him disagreeing with the doctors at the ER about Penny needing medicine for her elevated blood pressure and heart rate. His pretend sincerity for my family. Him saying he'd testify against Dr. Jones. Him pressing the fact that his rival practice was negligent. He wanted to ruin them. And what better than a public face like Penny's to do that? He was going to destroy Dr. Jones' practice with the tabloids, even without winning a lawsuit. He just wanted to be number one. And he said he was going to keep his eye on my son and Penny. I think he's planning to do something else." I winced at the pain.

"Are you alright?" Porter asked as he pulled Scarlett against his chest. She was still crying.

"I'm fine," I lied. "Scarlett?"

She looked up at me with her tear stained face.

"Tell Porter exactly what happened. Exactly when you saw Snape come, okay?"

Porter gave me an odd look.

"Okay, Daddy," she sniffled.

Twitch.

I ignored the twitch, just like I had the pain in my arm. "I'm going to the hospital. Make sure the police are there to meet me." I ran back out into the hall and down the staircase.

Three years ago, I had changed my life. I had started teaching again. I had stopped eating steak. And God, I fucking loved a good steak. I had started appreciating the little things more. My wife's laugh. My daughter's smile. With those changes, I had been able to lower my stress levels. I had been able to lower my blood pressure. I was healthy now. My last checkup verified that.

But I was tired. I told Daphne I wasn't drunk. But I wasn't exactly sober. The stress of the day had piled up. I felt physically sick with grief. With betrayal. I was angry. And heartbroken. And hopeful. It was too much.

So I shouldn't have been surprised by the sharp pain in my chest. I shouldn't have been surprised that my legs collapsed from underneath of me.

My shoulder landed hard on the step beneath me. My body continued to fall, and I couldn't seem to stop it. Finally the back of my head hit the floor at the bottom of the stairs. And it felt like all the life had just been sucked out of me. For a moment, I had the eerie feeling that Penny had just taken her last breath.

I tried to gasp for mine, sprawled at the bottom of the staircase. I tried to feel anything but the pain in my chest. My heart was failing. I had been so worried about Penny's that I had forgotten about the stress on my own.

I thought I was suffering from withdrawal, when in reality the twitch on the side of my face had been a sign of my body being attacked. The poison was killing me. And my heart was breaking because I was losing the love of my life.

Darkness. That was life without my light. Complete and utter darkness.

 

*   *   *

 

Thank you for reading The Light to My Darkness! Penny and James' story continues in !

One great love. That’s what every heart craves. I was lucky enough to find mine when I was 19. But I wouldn’t describe myself as lucky now.

My husband looks at me like I’m the light of his life. We live in a penthouse apartment that overlooks Central Park. My closet it filled with designer clothes and more pairs of shoes than I can count. I have everything I could possibly want at my fingertips. 

And I’ve accomplished my dream of writing a novel. I wrote my love story. Every kiss, every touch, every memory compiled in a manuscript. The pages make my heart ache, my tears flow freely, and my cheeks hurt from laughter. My whole life is written on these pages.

I have the perfect husband. The perfect family. The perfect life. 

But I don’t remember any of it.

 

 

Or if you can't even wait, just keep reading for a special sneak peek of A Whirlwind of Color.