My Fingerprint Was on the Bottle, but I Wasn’t on the Hook Chapter 07

My Fingerprint Was on the Bottle, but I Wasn’t on the Hook Chapter 07

I walked out of the interview room and she spotted me instantly. She marched over. “You’re Emma, right?”

I didn’t answer.

She looked me up and down, mouth curling. “Derek told me everything about you. How you’re paranoid, controlling, and how your marriage has been dead for years.”

I glanced at her stomach. The absurdity of it almost made me laugh.

“What else did he tell you?”

“He said as soon as he got things sorted out at home, he’d finally leave you. And then he’d marry me.” She lifted her chin. “What we have? That’s real.”

I let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “Do you know why he’s in custody right now?”

She blinked. “What, because you filed some fake report to get him in trouble?”

“He murdered his own grandmother.” I said it slowly. “He poisoned her to frame me. He was going to use her estate to buy you a house.”

Her face went pale, then flushed. Her lips moved like she was trying to form words and failing.

“That’s not—that’s bullshit—”

—

“It’s all on camera. If you don’t believe me, wait for the official statement.”

She stood there, one hand moving protectively over her belly.

I turned and walked away. Behind me, I heard her whisper, “He told me the money came from selling a house…”

I didn’t look back.

Outside the station the sun hit hard. My phone rang. My best friend Sophie Mitchell.

“Emma! What happened? Did they get that piece of trash?”

“They got him.”

“Hell yes! I told you that bastard would slip up eventually. Where are you right now?”

“In front of the station.”

“Stay put. I’ll be there in ten.”

I hung up and leaned against a pillar, staring at the sky.

Grandma was gone. The one person who was always kindest to me. Gone forever.

The last time I saw her she smiled and said, “You’re such a sweetheart, honey. You take better care of me than anyone ever has.”

She died not knowing the person who killed her was the grandson

—

she raised.

That thought broke something open in me. I dropped into a crouch right there on the pavement, face buried in my hands, my whole body shaking.

Not for Derek. For Grandma.

I couldn’t save her. I swapped the pills. I warned her. And Derek still found his opening.

He knew that house inside out. He knew her routines, where she kept her meds, exactly how to slip in and out without leaving a trace. If it weren’t for that hidden camera, I would be the one who in a jail cell right now.

Sophie’s car screeched to the curb. She jumped out and wrapped her arms around me.

“Let it out. Cry as long as you need to. Then we’re getting the biggest, greasiest meal we can find. That piece of trash doesn’t deserve a single tear. But Grandma? She deserves every one of them.”

I sobbed into her shoulder for a long time.