Chapter 5 - I WAS SUPPOSED TO EAT IT TOO“Then why is Daniel still standing?”
I read the sentence five times.
Claire read it twice.
Neither of us spoke.
Detective Brooks finally said, “It appears you may have been an intended target.”
My throat felt dry.
“But I ate dinner.”
“Not the stuffing.”
I remembered my plate.
Ham.
Potatoes.
Green beans.
A roll.
No stuffing.
Not because I disliked it.
Because my eight-year-old nephew Noah had spilled cranberry juice across the table just as the stuffing was passed.
I got up for towels.
When I returned, conversation had moved on and I never took any.
A child spilling juice may have saved my life.
Claire squeezed my hand so tightly it hurt.
“Who sent that message?”
“We’re working on it.”
“You have the number.”
“Burner phone.”
“Location?”
“Signal records put it near your neighborhood around the time of dinner.”
“So Andrew had an accomplice at the house?”
“Possibly.”
That word made everything worse.
Nineteen people had been under our roof.
Which one had expected me to eat poisoned stuffing?
Police began reconstructing every arrival.
Every departure.
Every phone.
Every vehicle.
At first, the unidentified number seemed useless.
Then investigators found it had connected to our Wi-Fi.
Only once.
Three days before Christmas.
Our router logs still showed the device.
I felt violated in a new way.
Someone had stood inside my house carrying the secret phone used to discuss killing my father and possibly me.
Who had visited three days earlier?
Claire made the list.
Mom.
Dad.
Megan.
Tyler.
My cousin Natalie.
Our neighbor, Mrs. Porter.
And Andrew.
But Andrew already possessed one burner.
The second belonged to someone else.
Detective Brooks asked about each visitor.
Mrs. Porter had dropped off cookies and stayed twelve minutes.
Megan brought folding chairs.
Tyler helped me move a table.
Mom and Dad delivered gifts.
Natalie borrowed a roasting pan.
Nobody seemed suspicious.
By afternoon, everyone except Dad had improved enough to leave the hospital or move to observation.
Dad remained in intensive care.
I drove Claire home after police cleared a portion of our house.
Christmas decorations were still glowing.
The tree lights blinked cheerfully over evidence markers.
Half-wrapped gifts sat beneath the branches.
A paper crown from a Christmas cracker lay beneath a chair.
The dining table was gone.
Police had taken it for processing.
Claire stood in the kitchen and cried.
Not loudly.
She simply leaned against the counter and stared at the empty space.
“I cooked that meal.”
“You didn’t do this.”
“My food hurt everybody.”
“Andrew did.”
“I served it.”
I turned her toward me.
“Stop.”
Her eyes were red.
“You don’t get to carry his guilt.”
She pressed her forehead against my chest.
For several minutes we stayed that way.
Then the doorbell rang.
I checked the security monitor before opening it.
Megan.
My sister looked terrible.
No makeup.
Hospital bracelet still around her wrist.
Tyler wasn’t with her.
I let her inside.
She hugged Claire first.
Then me.
“I need to tell you something.”
Of course she did.
That Christmas had turned every conversation into a confession.
Megan sat on the sofa.
“Tyler and Andrew have been doing business together.”
I stared at her.
“What kind of business?”
“I don’t know.”
“Megan.”
“I’m serious. Tyler told me it was investment stuff.”
“What investment stuff?”
“He gave Andrew money.”
“How much?”
She swallowed.
“One hundred thousand.”
My jaw tightened.
“You had one hundred thousand dollars?”
“It came from our home-equity line.”
“Without telling you?”
Tears appeared.
“Yes.”
Claire sat beside her.
“When did you find out?”
“Last month.”
“What did Tyler say?”
“That Andrew had a private real-estate opportunity that would double it.”
I almost shouted.
“Andrew is hundreds of thousands in debt.”
“I know that now.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dad?”
“Because Tyler begged me not to.”
I began pacing.
“Does Tyler have a second phone?”
Megan froze.
That was enough.
“Does he?”
“I found one in his truck in October.”
Claire and I exchanged a look.
“What did he say?”
“Work phone.”
“What work?”
“He manages insurance claims.”
“Where is he?”
“He said he was going home.”
“He didn’t come with you?”
“No.”
I called Brooks.
She asked me not to confront Tyler and dispatched officers.
Twenty-five minutes later, police arrived at Megan’s house.
Tyler wasn’t there.
His primary phone sat on the kitchen counter.
His truck was gone.
Another disappearance.
Another member of my family running.
Megan collapsed when Brooks told her.
“No. Tyler almost died too.”
That was true.
Tyler had eaten the stuffing.
He became sick.
Why would an accomplice knowingly poison himself?
Unless he didn’t know.
Or unless the dose wasn’t meant to be lethal for everyone.
At 4:30 p.m., toxicology provided a clearer picture.
The stuffing contained crushed digoxin tablets.
But Dad’s blood level was much higher than could be explained by the amount found in the common dish.
Someone had given Dad an additional dose.
The heavy plate.
Andrew’s text suddenly made sense.
Dad’s serving had been targeted separately.
“Could that have happened before dinner?” I asked.
“Yes,” Brooks said.
“On his plate?”
“Possibly mixed into another food item.”
I remembered Dad entering the dining room and stirring the stuffing.
Maybe that wasn’t suspicious.
Maybe someone had already prepared his plate.
We reviewed the footage again.
At 6:04, Claire began carrying dishes in.
At 6:06, Mom helped set places.
At 6:08, Tyler entered the dining room alone.
He moved place cards.
Straightened silverware.
Then stood at Dad’s seat.
His back blocked the camera.
His hand moved near Dad’s plate.
Four seconds.
Five.
Six.
Then he walked away.
My sister watched the footage beside us.
Her face crumpled.
“No.”
No one accused Tyler yet.
They didn’t need to.
Police searched his financial history.
By evening, they found sixty-two thousand dollars in transfers from one of Andrew’s shell companies into an account Tyler controlled.
Megan whispered, “He said it was investment profit.”
It wasn’t.
It looked like payment.
At 7:20 p.m., police found Tyler’s truck at a highway rest area.
At 7:46, they found Tyler inside a diner two miles away.
He didn’t resist arrest.
He didn’t run.
He asked only one question:
“Is Robert alive?”
When detectives told him yes, he started crying.
Then he said:
“I didn’t know Andrew was going to poison everybody.”
The interrogation lasted hours.
Tyler admitted he had helped Andrew move money through fraudulent insurance claims and shell vendors.
He admitted carrying a burner phone.
He admitted knowing about the plan to poison Dad.
But he insisted the plan he agreed to was different.
“What did you think would happen?” Brooks asked.
Tyler stared at the table in the recorded interrogation video.
“Andrew said he wanted his father sick enough to delay the will change.”
“By poisoning him?”
“He said it was something mild. Blood-pressure pills. He said Robert would spend a night in the hospital.”
“And Daniel?”
Tyler’s eyes lowered.
“I didn’t know about Daniel.”
Brooks put the text in front of him.
Then why is Daniel still standing?
Tyler stared.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Your burner.”
“No.”
“Connected to Daniel’s Wi-Fi.”
“I lost that phone three days before Christmas.”
Convenient.
Brooks pushed.
“Who had it?”
Tyler shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you report it missing?”
“Because it was a secret phone used for fraud.”
That was plausible in the ugliest possible way.
Then Brooks asked about Dad’s plate.
Tyler admitted touching it.
“I put the place card back. That’s all.”
“For six seconds?”
“I knocked the knife off the napkin.”
Tests on the plate would determine whether he was lying.
But before they could, another development exploded through the case.
Andrew called me.
Unknown number.
I answered on the second ring.
“Daniel.”
His voice sounded ragged.
“Where are you?”
“You think I wanted this?”
“You poisoned our family.”
“I was trying to scare Dad.”
“With digoxin?”
“I didn’t know what was in the bottle.”
I almost laughed.
“Tell that to police.”
“I will. But not until you listen.”
“People almost died.”
“I know.”
“Dad still might.”
Silence.
Then my brother started crying.
“I messed up.”
“You think?”
“But somebody changed the plan.”
I said nothing.
Andrew continued.
“The bottle I used was supposed to contain a bitter herbal concentrate. Enough to ruin the food and make Dad think he’d been poisoned. I wanted him scared.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. But test the bottle if you find it.”
“Where is it?”
“I threw it behind your garage.”
Police had searched inside.
Maybe not behind the detached garage.
I signaled Claire to call Brooks.
Andrew said, “Daniel, listen to me. Somebody switched bottles.”
“Who?”
“The person who offered to help me.”
“Tyler?”
“No.”
My blood went cold.
“Then who?”
Andrew breathed into the phone.
“A person you would never suspect.”
“Name them.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I’m right, they’re listening.”
Then I heard a sound.
A car door.
Andrew whispered one final sentence.
May you like
“They’re here.”
The line went dead.
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