From that day on, Margot really did stop coming by.
Instead, she moved into an apartment downstairs from us.
Word was that Eugene had rented it for her, saying it would make it easier for her mother's follow-up checkups.
After that, she staged a "chance encounter" every single day.
Morning, Eugene left for work, and she just happened to be stepping out to take the trash down.
Evening, Eugene came home, and she just happened to be downstairs picking up a delivery.
Even when I took Boris down to play, she could somehow "just happen" to walk past with snacks and come over to fuss over him.
Boris was too trusting, and he was always saying "Miss Margot is so kind."
In my last life, it was exactly that trust of his that let her coax him up to the roof, where she shoved him off.
I started keeping Boris away from her, and Rosamond kept saying I was blowing things out of proportion, sneaking him off to see her behind my back.
Then one day I got off work early. I'd just reached our front door when I heard Margot's syrupy voice coming from inside.
"Darling, Jasmine's guarding against me so hard now. When can we finally be together out in the open?"
Eugene answered with a laugh. "What's the rush? She's holding that stack of assets from her family, plus thirty percent of the company's shares. We have to take this slow."
"Once I've moved all the company's core assets into your name, then I'll catch her in some fault and send her out of this marriage with nothing. By then this whole house will be ours to run, won't it?"
Margot answered in a wheedling voice. "But I can't wait!"
"One look at that superior air of hers and I'm furious."
"Why should she be born with money and looks and a husband and a kid, while I had to suffer from the time I was little?"
Eugene soothed her. "Relax. It'll be over soon."
"I've already lined up people at the psychiatric hospital. Give it a while longer, then we say she's got mental problems, violent tendencies, and we put her away."
"By then Boris's custody is mine, the family assets are all ours, and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy it."
Then Rosamond's voice came from inside the house, cheerful as she spoke. "Margot, you're so much more sensible than Jasmine. Gentle, thoughtful too."
"Once we've shipped her off, you move in, give the Delgado family another big fat grandson, and everything the Delgados have will belong to you and your son from then on."
I stood outside the door and felt the blood in my whole body go still.
So in my last life, they'd had all of it planned out long ago.
The family I'd poured my heart out to had marked me, from the start, as a thorn in the eye, a splinter in the flesh.
I drew in a deep breath, pushed down the hatred surging up in me, and opened the door.
The three of them in the living room froze on the spot.
Margot had her arm hooked through Eugene's, Rosamond held a fruit plate, and the smiles hadn't had time to leave their faces.
"Jassie, why are you back at this hour?"
Margot pulled her hand back at once and laughed awkwardly. "I just came up to bring Auntie some fruit we grew ourselves..."
I said coldly, "Bringing fruit requires you plastered against my husband?"
"Or is it that the two of you can't wait to take over the nest?"
Eugene's face went ugly, and he shouted at me, "Jasmine, what nonsense are you spouting!"
"Margot just came to see Mom. Can you not be so snide every single time?"
Rosamond glared at me, brows raised, and snapped, "I invited Margot up to sit. So what?"
"This household is not yours to call the shots on!"
I gave a small laugh and didn't argue with them.
Arguing with rabid dogs is pointless.
"Fine, you all talk. I'll go check on Boris in my room." I turned and headed for the nursery, and behind me came the sound of all three of them letting out a breath at once.
I shut the door, leaned back against it, and took out my phone.
That conversation at the door just now, I'd recorded the whole thing.
At the same time, the information I'd hired a private investigator to dig up came through.
In the photo, a middle-aged woman in a floral shirt was doing morning aerobics in the park at the complex's plaza.
She was Margot's mother, spry in her movements, beaming, nothing at all like someone who'd just come out of major surgery for kidney failure.
Below it was a detailed report. Margot's mother, Shelagh Lambert: no history of serious illness. The so-called kidney-failure diagnosis was forged by a contact at the county hospital, and the hospitalization records were bought.
After Margot got the three hundred thousand, she'd already paid cash in full for a three-bedroom back in her hometown county, and spent the rest on luxury goods and paying off online loans. Not a cent went to any medical bills.
The chain of evidence was one link more complete.
Two weeks later, they finally made their move.
I'd just gotten up and finished washing when I heard the racket in the living room.
Two men in white coats stood in the living room, ringed by seven or eight relatives and neighbors, all pointing and muttering.
Rosamond sat on the sofa dabbing at her eyes, slapping her thigh as she wept. "It's a curse! I don't know what's gotten into my daughter-in-law lately. Every day she's suspicious of everything, always saying someone's out to hurt her. Last night she nearly strangled Boris to death!"
Eugene stood off to one side, his expression grave, holding up a stamped diagnosis and telling the people around him, "The doctors diagnosed severe depression with schizophrenia, serious violent tendencies."
"For Boris's safety, and the neighbors' safety, the only option is to send her to the psychiatric hospital for treatment first."
The neighbors and relatives immediately fell to buzzing.
"My goodness, she looks like such a normal person. How does someone just go crazy like that?"
"Poor child, with a crazy mother. What's he going to do from now on?"
"Mr. Delgado really doesn't have it easy either, holding up the company while his wife loses her mind. So hard on him."
Margot stood at the back of the crowd, dabbing at her eyes in that fake way, her voice pitched just right so everyone could hear. "How could Jassie end up like this?"
"If I'd known, I'd have come to keep her company more. It's all my fault..."
I stood at the top of the stairs, watching them perform, cold-eyed.
Now that everyone was assembled, it was time to let the show begin.
