Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN CARRYING MY MEDICINE
Detective Laura Bennett placed the clearest photograph on top of my hospital blanket.
Jason stood beside a silver sedan two streets from our house. His suitcase was still in the trunk of the airport shuttle behind him.
The timestamp showed 8:17 that morning—almost an hour after he had kissed my forehead and pretended to leave for Europe.
A woman waited beside the sedan.
She was tall, blond, and wearing a camel-colored coat. Jason handed her a paper pharmacy bag.
My name was printed across the label.
“Do you recognize her?” Detective Bennett asked.
I did.
“Natalie Price.”
Saying the name felt like swallowing broken glass.
Natalie worked as an account manager at the insurance company that held Jason’s business policies. He had introduced us at a holiday party the previous year, calling her “practically family.”
She had squeezed my hand and said she had heard wonderful things about me.
Now she was holding the medication I needed to stay alive.
“What happened next?” I asked.
Detective Bennett showed me another photograph.
Natalie entered our house using a key.
Twenty minutes later, she came out carrying a plastic toolbox.
Inside it, police later found the screws used to seal the windows and a portable signal jammer that had blocked my phone.
“She helped him prepare the house,” I whispered.
“That is our working theory.”
My physician, Dr. Patel, stood near the window with his arms folded.
“You were experiencing the beginning of an adrenal crisis when emergency responders found you,” he said. “Abrupt interruption of your medication, combined with dehydration and stress, could have killed you within hours.”
Jason knew that.
He had sat beside me during the appointment when Dr. Patel explained the danger.
He asked detailed questions.
How quickly would symptoms appear?
Would I remain conscious?
Could it look like a natural complication of my illness?
At the time, I thought he was frightened.
Now I understood he had been gathering instructions.
Detective Bennett opened a second folder.
“Your husband increased your life-insurance coverage four months ago.”
“How much?”
“Three million dollars.”
I stared at her.
“I never approved that.”
“Your electronic signature appears on the application.”
“It’s forged.”
“Jason is the sole beneficiary.”
My mouth went dry.
The house was mine.
My grandmother had left it to me before I met Jason. It sat on nearly three acres outside Boulder and had risen significantly in value during our marriage.
Jason had always called it our house.
Legally, it had never been his.
Unless I died.
“What about the power and water?” I asked.
“Both disconnections were scheduled through online accounts created in your name. The utility companies received messages stating the property would be vacant for renovation.”
“Renovation?”
Detective Bennett’s expression hardened.
“Someone also submitted a request to transfer the deed after your anticipated death.”
My hands began shaking again.
“How can someone submit that before I’m dead?”
“They prepared the documents in advance.”
A nurse entered to check my blood pressure. I could see concern in her face when the numbers appeared.
I forced myself to breathe slowly.
“Where is Jason now?”
“According to immigration records, he flew to Paris with his parents and sister.”
“Does he know I survived?”
“We do not believe so.”
I looked at the phone on my bedside table.
Jason had sent three messages from the airport.
Boarding now. Rest and don’t worry.
Remember to take your pills.
Love you.
He had written the second message knowing my medication was inside another woman’s car.
“He’s creating a record,” I said.
Detective Bennett nodded.
“Messages suggesting concern. Proof that he reminded you to take medication. An international travel history supporting his alibi.”
“Why seventy-four days?”
“We’re still investigating.”
I looked again at Natalie’s photograph.
“Have you arrested her?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“We need to know how much she understands and who else is involved.”
My hospital door opened.
A security officer entered with a frightened receptionist.
“This woman was asking for Mrs. Collins’s room,” the officer said. “She claimed she was from the insurance company.”
Behind them stood Natalie.
She looked nothing like the confident woman in the photograph.
Her hair was damp. Her makeup had run beneath her eyes.
When she saw me awake, she stopped.
“You’re alive.”
The words escaped before she could control them.
Detective Bennett stood.
“Ms. Price, step away from the patient.”
Natalie looked toward the hallway.
Two officers blocked it.
“I came to help.”
“You were photographed carrying her medication,” Bennett said.
“Jason said she had stopped taking it.”
“He removed it from the house.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You entered the property and helped seal the windows.”
“He said Mara was confused and trying to leave during medical episodes.”
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
“Why did you have a key?”
Natalie’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because Jason and I were together.”
There it was.
Not a suspicion.
Not perfume on a shirt.
Not late-night messages turned face down.
The truth.
“How long?” I asked.
“Eleven months.”
I closed my eyes.
The flare had begun three months earlier.
During the worst nights, Jason told me work required him to sleep in the guest room.
Apparently, work had a name.
Natalie began talking faster.
“He said your marriage was over. He said you refused to accept it. He told me you were mentally unstable and that the house had to be secured because you wandered outside.”
“So you helped lock me inside?”
“I thought a caregiver was coming.”
“Who?”
She had no answer.
Detective Bennett moved closer.
“What were you planning to do with the medication?”
Natalie’s face turned pale.
“Jason told me to keep it until he called.”
“Why?”
“He said if the pills were found in the house, investigators might think Mara had tried to take them.”
I stared at her.
He had removed the medication not only to deny me treatment, but to control the evidence afterward.
Natalie covered her mouth.
“I didn’t know he wanted her dead.”
Detective Bennett studied her.
“What did you think would happen when a seriously ill woman was left without medication, water, electricity, or a working phone?”
Natalie began crying.
No one comforted her.
An officer led her from the room.
Before the door closed, she turned toward me.
“Jason said this wasn’t the first time his family had handled a problem like this.”
Detective Bennett stopped the officer.
“What does that mean?”
Natalie shook her head.
“I don’t know. He said his mother had taught him how to make someone disappear without touching them.”
The room became silent.
Then Bennett’s phone rang.
She listened for several seconds.
“We searched the house,” she said after ending the call. “There’s a hidden camera in your bedroom.”
“Jason was watching me?”
“The feed was accessed from France thirty-seven minutes ago.”
My blood turned cold.
Jason knew I was no longer inside the house.
And before Detective Bennett could shut down the connection, the camera’s microphone captured his voice through the remote speaker.
May you like
“Mara,” he said softly, “you should have stayed where I left you.”
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