3: 3
3
The second they stepped into the elevator, I called hospital security.
They didn't even make it out of the garage before the guards stopped them.
Evelyn panicked. She rushed up to the guard to block his way, then remembered she'd brought the death certificate and shot Bryan a look before digging through her bag.
She rummaged for a long moment. There was nothing in it.
The guard spoke up, impatient. "No one leaves the parking garage today."
"On whose authority?"
"It's hot out. The body goes bad, that's on you?"
"Body? What body?" The guard was stunned.
Because his orders were simple: no inpatient leaves the hospital.
He started toward the gurney. Evelyn was frantic now, at the end of her rope.
"I have a death certificate!"
"Where is it? I'm just following orders. You want to make trouble for me?"
The corner of Evelyn's mouth twitched, and finally she blew up.
"What is this hospital trying to pull?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
The whole group was screaming at each other by the time I arrived in the garage with the doctor.
Evelyn saw the doctor at my side, and her face lit up.
"Dr. Lambert, finally. Your guards won't let me through."
"If Giles doesn't get to cremation soon, he's going to start to smell."
I watched her wink and gesture at me, smiling. She must have thought her savior had arrived.
Evelyn quickly shoved Dr. Lambert toward Giles.
Then she turned and glared at me, vicious.
"If you insist on making trouble, you leave me no choice but to call Old Mr. Gilbert."
I saw the knuckles gripping her phone had gone white.
What she didn't know was that this line was exactly what I'd been waiting for.
But I was in no hurry to provoke her. I kept my eyes fixed on Dr. Lambert, watching him lift the sheet and lay it back over Giles's head. The moment he shook his head at me, I knew half my plan had worked.
The stone lifted off my chest. Evelyn's reaction, on the other hand, was something else.
She stared at Dr. Lambert in shock, and when she got no response, turned her eyes to Bryan.
"I keep telling you, I handle thousands of dead bodies a year. You think I can't tell if someone's dead?"
His own words startled him.
Evelyn had warned him again and again in private: seizing a critically ill Giles took care. And now—
The thing you fear most is the thing that comes.
"He's really dead?"
Once Dr. Lambert confirmed it, the whole group fell apart.
Evelyn most of all. Her legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground.
"Impossible. You've got it wrong, haven't you?"
Watching her come undone, I said, "I warned you a long time ago. Giles couldn't take being dragged around like this."
Then I leaned close to her ear and murmured, "All these years you needled me from the shadows, and never lost once. Now that you've gone down like this, how does it feel?"
That snapped Evelyn back to herself, and she looked at me, seething.
From the first time she came at me, every step I gave up only made her think I was easy to push around.
Giles was no different. He kept his mistress in the building next door.
Every time I wheeled him downstairs for the sun and watched the two of them trade glances, I pretended I knew nothing, saw nothing.
Even the valuables in our home slowly vanished, one by one.
They'd all end up on Evelyn in the end. Even the jewelry I loved was no exception.
The truth was, I wasn't blind. I'd known his every move for a long time.
The moment they took me for a real fool, my plan began.
But this was only the first step of it.
When Bryan and his men kicked open the door of the hospital room, I knew Evelyn had taken the bait.
Now she was staring at me in disbelief.
Muttering under her breath, "It's over, it's over."
"My whole plan is ruined!"
Then, like a mad woman, she glared at me and screamed, "So what if Giles is dead? You'll never beat me. The one who isn't loved is the mistress."
"No one's fighting you for anything," I said.
What Evelyn didn't know was that from start to finish, I never wanted Giles's inheritance.
She saw the contempt on my face and thought I was dead set on winning, and the sweat broke out all over her.
"That's right. I've got someone backing me."
Bryan saw Evelyn rambling, incoherent, like a mad woman, and quickly cut in to remind her.
"Sis, you've got the death certificate, what are you scared of?"
Evelyn pulled herself together at once.
"Right. I don't just have a death certificate, I have the will too!"
"Bridget, so what if you're his wife? You still lost!"
"Oh, and let me tell you a secret. The house you're living in has already been signed over to my name. Didn't see that coming, did you?"
The three-thousand-square-foot place Giles and I lived in after we married was under the old man's name.
Hearing Evelyn quietly sell out Old Mr. Gilbert, I couldn't help but smile too.
"How's it feel, handing over a fortune worth millions on a silver platter?"
I held back a laugh, not willing to waste any more breath on this fool.
Evelyn saw that I couldn't be bothered to deal with her, and only then did she look dumbstruck.
I said, "When the man behind you learns that you killed Giles, do you know what that means for you?"
"Who says I killed him? You're the one who blocked me on purpose to stall for time."
"Giles hadn't stopped breathing. How did you get a death certificate? You think he won't have a coroner take a look?"
That was when Evelyn was truly scared. The color drained out of her face all at once.
Bryan looked at her, all bluster and no backbone, and reminded her again, exasperated. "Sis, it's thirty-six degrees today. We stall any longer and it really will stink. There'll be no explaining it!"
Evelyn came to her senses and finally pulled out her phone to call the old man.
She hung up, and I said with a smile, "So what did your reinforcements say?"
"He's coming himself. You can wait to die."
I rolled my eyes at her.
Evelyn and Giles, these two fools, playing clever, copying other people's faked-death escape trick, and in the end it was playing with fire and burning themselves. This situation now was no more than what they deserved.
"You think that once he shows up, I'm as good as dead?"
"You killed his only son!" Evelyn screamed at me.
The instant it was out, she realized she'd said too much, and tried to clap a hand over her mouth, but it was already too late.
I looked at her like she was an idiot.
"I let the two of you have your way, played the fool right along with you! And now you want to drag Old Mr. Gilbert out and pin this on me?"
