Chapter 13 - The Sample
The request had been submitted forty-eight hours earlier.
Angela had apparently learned the samples still existed before we did.
That made the police interested.
Very interested.
Detective Lena Ortiz joined the case.
She asked me to repeat every detail from the last month.
The trip.
The lie.
The clinic.
The trust.
My mother’s recording.
When I finished, Ortiz said, “Do not contact Angela.”
Angela contacted me first.
She appeared outside the library at 3:20 p.m.
I saw her through the glass doors.
No makeup. Hair tied back. Hands empty.
I called Ortiz and stayed inside.
Angela texted.
PLEASE. TEN MINUTES.
Ortiz arrived before I went out.
We met Angela in a small interview room at the police substation.
She looked at me and started crying.
“David lied to me too.”
“I’m sure that must be difficult.”
“I didn’t know about the guardianship until Arizona.”
“You practiced my signature.”
“I thought it was for a property consent.”
“You notarized nothing. Your cousin did.”
“I know.”
“Why did you request my mother’s toxicology sample?”
Angela went still.
Then she whispered, “Because I gave her something.”
The room seemed to lose sound.
“What?” I asked.
“Not poison.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“What did you give Margaret Hale?”
“Sleeping pills. David said she hadn’t slept in days. He crushed them into tea.”
My hands closed into fists.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You handed my mother drugged tea?”
Angela covered her mouth.
“She got dizzy. She fell. David panicked.”
“My mother had a stroke.”
“I know.”
“What did he do?”
Angela’s eyes filled.
“He waited before calling 911.”
“How long?”
She looked at Ortiz instead of me.
“Forty-three minutes.”
Then she said, “There’s something else Rebecca needs to know.”
Ortiz told her to continue.
Angela swallowed.
“Margaret was still conscious.”
May you like
“And?”
“She recorded David.”
