My Fingerprint Was on the Bottle, but I Wasn’t on the Hook Chapter 03

My Fingerprint Was on the Bottle, but I Wasn’t on the Hook Chapter 03

I stood there, stunned. “Mom—”

“Don’t you call me Mom!” She was screaming now, finger shaking at me. “Grandma was fine. The one day you go over there, the next morning she’s dead! Who else could it be?”

Derek said nothing.

His silence cut deeper than Patricia’s screeching.

Two officers from Fairview PD walked up the corridor. “We received a call from the hospital. We need to ask a few questions.”

Patricia threw herself at them. “Officers! It’s her—my daughterinlaw! She delivered the pills yesterday. She murdered my motherinlaw!”

Their eyes landed on me. “Ma’am, you were the one who brought the medication yesterday?”

“I did, but—”

“Where’s the prescription bottle?”

That’s when Derek spoke. Calm. Measured. Lethal.

“Officers, the bottle should still be on the coffee table at my grandmother’s house. It’ll have my wife’s fingerprints on it. She’s the one who’s been handling her meds.”

He didn’t look at me when he said it.

I understood immediately. He was threading every piece of evidence straight toward me.

One officer left for the house and came back fast, holding an evidence bag with a single prescription bottle inside.

I recognized it. The bottle from CVS. The label, the lot number—everything about it was legitimate.

A small knot in my chest loosened. I bought that bottle myself at a licensed pharmacy. The pills inside should check out clean.

Once the lab proved that, I’d be cleared.

Then the medical examiner walked over, face grim. “Preliminary results are back. The remaining tablets in that bottle contain a lethal dose of a compound that triggers cardiac arrest.”

My blood stopped.

Impossible. I purchased that bottle myself. I broke the seal. I handed Grandma a pill with my own hands.

Unless—

Someone got into that bottle after I left. Swapped the pills and left the bottle. My prints. A different death inside.

The examiner went on, “Prints lifted from the bottle are a match.”

He looked at me. “Mrs. Foster.”

Patricia’s wail filled the hall. “I told you! Arrest her!”

Derek finally broke his silence, eyes red, voice cracking just enough. “I can’t believe it… Officers, my grandmother raised me…”

His shoulders shook. Grief poured out of him in perfect, practiced waves. The crowd murmured.

“That poor man. His wife killed his grandma.”

“She’s a monster. She’ll get what’s coming.”

The officer turned to me, tone flat.

“Mrs. Foster, the evidence right now isn’t in your favor. The bottle at the scene has only your prints. You’re the last person known to have given the victim medication. And the contents just tested positive for a lethal substance. We’re going to need you to come down to the station.”

He reached for his handcuffs. Metal clicked. Sharp and cold.

Derek finally looked at me.

There was no anger in his eyes. No grief. Only a private, coiled relief.