Chapter 3 - TRACED IN POISONMy heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I sprinted back into the room and grabbed Sarah's attending physician by the lab coat right outside her door.
"Dr. Chen! The blood panel you ran on my wife—what did it show?!"
The doctor looked startled, checking his chart. "Mr. Vance, calm down. We ran standard panels to prepare her for skin dressing..."
"Read it to me! Now!"
Dr. Chen flicked through his tablet, his eyebrows drawing together in sudden confusion. "That’s strange... Her screen returned positive for high traces of Zolpidem and Lithium. Heavy sedatives and mood stabilizers."
I collapsed back against the wall.
Sarah didn't take prescription meds. She didn't even like taking ibuprofen while breastfeeding. Margaret had been lacing her daily supplements for weeks, building a fake medical profile of a postpartum mother suffering from psychosis.
It was a masterstroke of cold, calculated evil.
Margaret wasn't just trying to get the house—she was systematically erasing Sarah from our lives, setting up a narrative where Sarah was an unfit, medicated mother who accidentally burned herself, while Margaret was the brave grandmother stepping in to save the baby.
"Ethan?" Sarah’s voice was faint from inside the room.
I walked back in, trying to force a reassuring smile, but my hands were shaking.
"What is it, honey?" she murmured, her eyes half-open. "Where’s Maya?"
"She’s with the nanny at my friend Mark’s apartment. She’s safe," I lied softly. In reality, CPS had already dispatched a social worker to verify Maya's location, and if Margaret’s lawyers acted fast, they would lock down the baby within twelve hours.
"Your mother... she told me something before you broke the door," Sarah whispered, clutching my hand with weak fingers.
"Don't worry about her—"
"No, Ethan, listen to me," Sarah insisted, her voice trembling. "She said... she said your father didn't die of a heart attack. She said he tried to leave her, and that she made sure he never left the house alive."
A cold shudder ran down my spine.
Three years ago, my father, Arthur Vance, was found dead in his study at the family estate. The coroner declared it natural causes—a sudden cardiac arrest. Margaret had insisting on an immediate cremation.
I had been too grieved to question it then.
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"Did she say anything else?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"She said... 'The blueprints Ethan drew for this house... they built my perfect graveyard.'"
