Acting on Julian Cross’s tip, Detective Danforth secured a search warrant for Serena’s private beachfront cottage in Narragansett. The salty evening air bit at my face as I stood with the officers, watching the search unfold.
Lily was with Ethan at a secured hotel in Warwick. I couldn’t be near him, not when Serena’s custody petition was still active.
Inside the cottage, every surface spoke of Serena’s curated elegance. Antique furniture, nautical art, perfectly arranged seashells.
But the police weren’t looking for aesthetics.
An officer called out from a small study off the living room. “Detective! Over here.”
Detective Danforth and I entered, finding him standing over an ornate antique desk. Its drawers were wide open.
“We found this,” the officer said, holding up a dark blue leather binder. It looked out of place among the desk’s delicate contents.
Danforth opened it. Inside, nestled among other legal documents, was an unfiled codicil to the Kingsbury Family Trust agreement.
It had been drafted by an out-of-state lawyer, its language cold and precise.
My eyes scanned the crucial clause. It specified that “in the event of Ethan Kingsbury’s death or permanent mental incompetence prior to reaching the age of nine years, the entirety of the $45,000,000 principal shall immediately convert into an irrevocable personal annuity for Serena Kingsbury.”
Forty-five million dollars. All of it. For her.
Attached to the codicil, shocking in its clinical detail, was a small, leather-bound notebook. Inside, written in Serena’s familiar, elegant script, were detailed logs.
Dates. Times. Precise measurements.
Ethan’s daily poison dosages. Calculated to cause a gradual neurological shutdown. Slow enough to mimic an illness, to keep me distracted and gaslit.
Without triggering sudden heart failure or any immediate, suspicious death.
Detective Danforth’s jaw tightened as he logged the notebook into evidence, sealing it in a clear plastic bag.
My phone, clutched in my hand, suddenly buzzed with an incoming call from Lily. My heart leaped into my throat.
I answered, my voice hoarse. “Lily? Is everything alright?”
Her voice on the other end was a frantic, terrified gasp. “Mr. Victor! Ethan… he stopped breathing! They’re rushing him to Rhode Island Hospital by ambulance!”
The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the polished hardwood floor. The cottage, once a symbol of Serena’s greed, now felt like a tomb.
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