The Bottle That Had Been Emptied

“That message was meant to pull me back through the door,” I said as the pieces finally settled into place. “You weren’t trying to hurt the kids. You were trying to get me here.”

Brenda gave a small nod, then folded over the counter, her hands covering her face. “Mark has the keys. He’s thrown the deadbolts. I can’t take them out by myself. I had to bring you back, but if he saw me ask for help, he’d kill all of us.”

I crossed the kitchen and gathered my sister against me. She trembled so hard I felt it through our clothes; her skin was still chilled beneath my palms.

“I’m with you,” I murmured, fierce and low. “We’ll get them outside. Now.”

Brenda pulled away and scrubbed her cheeks with her sleeve. “There isn’t time to waste. I’ll take Maya. Get Leo from his crib. The Benadryl in their drinks should keep them asleep while we carry them.”

My gaze flicked to the pink thermos and the baby’s bottle. The idea frightened me, but I could see no safer choice in front of us.

“All right,” I said, giving her a quick nod. “I’ll bring Leo.”

I left the kitchen without a sound and headed along the hall. Each board gave a faint complaint beneath my feet. The nursery door stood slightly ajar, and I eased through the opening.

Darkness filled the room except for the little turtle lamp glowing in one corner. I crept to the crib. Leo slept on, his small chest lifting and falling with an evenness that seemed impossibly calm.

I slid my arms beneath him and raised him carefully. A blue fleece blanket rested over the rail; I drew it around his body. He shifted, released a quiet breath, and settled again without opening his eyes.

I tucked him against me and turned toward the doorway.

At the threshold, I stopped.

The hall felt different. I couldn’t say why at first.

Then I saw the master bedroom. Its door had been shut when I passed before. Now it stood wide, revealing a dark room with no one inside.

My pulse stumbled. If Mark wasn’t in there, where had he gone?

I hurried back toward the kitchen, every instinct in me sharpened around the baby in my arms. I rounded the corner—and froze, air trapped in my lungs.

Brenda was not by herself.

Mark stood directly behind her, one broad hand pressed across her mouth. His other fist held a rumpled scrap of paper: the note Maya had slipped into my pocket.

The message had said, She is putting them in.

I had left my phone on the counter when I hugged Brenda. The note had been hidden inside its case. Mark must have discovered it there.

He stared at me without blinking. Whatever weariness I’d seen on him earlier had vanished. He didn’t look like someone planning to flee. He looked like someone who had cornered what he wanted.

Slowly, he removed his palm from Brenda’s lips, but his fingers stayed clamped around the back of her neck.

“Chloe,” he said, his low voice carrying across the quiet kitchen. “I’m pleased you came back.”

I couldn’t move. Leo’s warm weight pressed against my chest. “Take your hands off her.”

“That won’t work,” he replied with a weary little sigh, as if I’d disappointed him. “Brenda has been filling your head with things. Stories about me.”

He advanced, pulling Brenda along with him. She made a muffled sound and clawed at the hand holding her.

“She said I struck Maya, didn’t she?” Mark asked, canting his head to one side.

“I saw her face,” I answered, forcing steadiness into my voice. “I know who did that.”

A rough chuckle came from him. He reached past Brenda, lifted the pink thermos from the counter, and loosened its top.

“Your sister can invent anything,” he said, almost gently. “She’s always needed everyone to see her as the injured one. Did she tell you she ground up Benadryl to make the children sleep?”

“Yes,” I said. I tightened my hold on Leo, careful not to wake him.

Mark tipped the container over the sink. Its contents spilled into the stainless basin.

What came out wasn’t pale water with powder stirred through it. A vivid pink, heavy-looking muck slid from the thermos in a slow stream.

The sight brought to mind the thick medicine given for serious infections, the kind usually stored cold. Mixed with the wrong substances, I knew, it could turn deadly.

“Benadryl is white,” Mark said quietly, meeting my eyes. “What was in Maya’s thermos was antifreeze and ground rat poison. I found it out in the garage about an hour ago.”

The cold in my body seemed to deepen all at once.

I looked at Brenda. Her face had changed. The panic and terror drained away, leaving an expression flat and unreadable, its stillness more frightening than her fear.

Maya’s message hadn’t been warning me about Mark.

She is putting them in.

Maya had meant Brenda.

I fixed my eyes on the thick pink residue coating the sink. My mind fought the picture, refusing to accept what Mark had said or what it might mean.

Antifreeze and rat poison.