Outside the door, the woman’s heels clicked impatiently. “Daniel, look at the counter. Her phone isn’t in the kitchen. She has it with her. What if she called someone?”
A heavy silence fell over the hallway. The handle stopped rattling.
Then came the weight of his shoulder throwing itself against the solid oak door. The frame groaned. Noah let out a tiny, stifled whimper, and I threw my body over his, covering his mouth with my hand, ready to use myself as a shield.
Thud.
“Rachel!” Daniel’s voice dropped all pretense, turning sharp and manic. “You think you’re smart? You think you’re going to ruin this for me? Everything is in my name. The insurance, the house, the accounts. You were supposed to just go to sleep!”
Thud. The wood near the deadbolt began to splinter.
“Daniel, stop! Let’s just take the bags and leave!” the woman screamed. I recognized her voice now. It was Vanessa, his firm’s junior accountant. The one he claimed was “like a niece” to him.
“We can’t leave them alive, you idiot!” Daniel roared back, his composure completely shattering. “If they survive, the toxicology report ruins everything! Hold this!”
I heard the distinct sound of metal scraping against metal. He had gone to the garage. He was getting the crowbar.
“Operator,” I breathed into the phone, the poison making my vision blur at the edges, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “He’s going to break in. He has a tool. My son… please…”
“They are entering the driveway now, Rachel. Hold on. Just hold on.”
A sharp, violent splintering sound tore through the bathroom. The tip of a black iron crowbar pierced through the white-painted wood of the door, right above the lock.
“Daniel, please!” Vanessa shrieked from the hallway. “There are headlights in the driveway! Someone’s outside!”
“Shut up and help me pry it!”
The crowbar wrenched downward, throwing a shower of wood chips onto the bathroom tile. The door gaped open an inch, revealing Daniel’s sweating, frantic face through the crack. His eyes were bloodshot, completely devoid of the man I had married seven years ago.
