“Why let me see the transfer?”
“I didn’t.”
For the first time, she seemed annoyed.
“That was his mistake.”
“What about the repeated drugs?”
“Tests.”
I closed my eyes.
She said it as if discussing a recipe.
“We needed to know how your body reacted.”
“You practiced killing me.”
My mother flinched.
“Yes.”
Silence filled the room.
Then I asked again.
“Why save me?”
She stared at her hands.
“Because when I looked inside the coffin…”
Her voice cracked.
“…you looked exactly the way you did when they placed you in my arms after you were born.”
Something moved inside me.
I hated it.
Pity.
I crushed it.
Deborah continued.
“You were blinking, but barely.
Terrified.
And suddenly the money meant nothing.”
“So you rescued me.”
“Yes.”
“And then tracked me.”
Her eyes lifted.
There.
The truth beneath the truth.
“I was trying to decide what to do.”
“Meaning?”
“If you went to police immediately, everything came out.”
“So you kept me hidden.”
“Yes.”
“While helping me investigate Preston.”
“I thought if I gave you enough evidence against him, perhaps you’d stop there.”
My laugh echoed through the room.
“You were feeding me your own accomplices.”
“Yes.”
“And when I found you on the camera?”
“I knew it was over.”
I stepped closer.
“Did you plan to kill me at the cottage?”
Her silence answered.
My throat closed.
“Mom?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I had pills.”
My stomach turned.
“In my food?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“In my purse.”
She began crying.
“I carried them every day.”
The room became unbearably quiet.
“Why?”
“In case I decided I could finish what I started.”
I stared at my mother.
“And did you?”
“No.”
“Because you loved me?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
That answer shocked me.
“Then why?”
She looked straight at me.
“Because I finally understood that every person in my life I called weak had simply been someone I was willing to hurt.”
My anger did not disappear.
Her remorse did not erase anything.
But I believed that sentence.
She reached into her pocket.
I tensed.
She removed not a weapon—
But a flash drive.
“What’s that?”
“Everything.”
She placed it on the table.
“Accounts.
Messages.
Meetings.
Recordings.
Thomas’s will.
The trust documents.
Proof against Preston.
Proof against Sabine.”
“And against you?”
She nodded.
“Mostly against me.”
I stared.
“Why give it to me?”
“Because I am tired.”
My mother turned toward the window.
“I have spent my entire life arranging people like pieces on a board.
Your grandmother taught me.
I became better at it than she ever was.”
She smiled faintly.
“And look what I won.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
