On the other end of the line, silence lingered for several seconds before a low, steady voice finally responded.
“Good. You’ve finally made up your mind. I’ve been investigating this case for the past five years. Give me one more week, and I’ll make sure they pay—blood for blood.”
I closed my eyes, my fingernails digging deep into my palms.
“All right. In the meantime, I’ll find a way to get hold of the surveillance footage from that surgery.”
Alan paused before lowering his voice. “Why are you so certain she still has it?”
Instantly, the memory of that day five years ago surged before my eyes.
The machines blared with urgent alarms. The heart monitor abruptly flatlined. My son’s small body convulsed one last time on the operating table…
And in the trembling hand of the assistant surgeon, Mariam Shanahan, gleamed a syringe filled with the wrong medication.
Her stammering confession still rang in my ears. “I’m sorry, I… I must have grabbed the wrong drug…”
Later, I learned it was not a mistake at all. She had done it on purpose!
Before I was sentenced, she leaned close to my ear and whispered, “If your son hadn’t died, I’d never have a chance with Charlton. I kept that surgical footage as a trophy. I watch it whenever I feel like it. It’s exhilarating!”
My eyes snapped open at the memory, and my voice cut like ice.
“That bitch definitely still has it.”
Alan’s tone turned grim. “That’s great. If we can secure that footage, our chances will be higher.”
I hung up, my chest heaving as though my lungs might tear apart.
I was locked up in jail for five long years.
Five years ago, my own husband, Charlton Cohen, both an anesthesiologist and the man I once trusted most, testified falsely against me in court and sent me behind bars.
For those five years, he never visited me once.
And today, the day of my release, he was not there either.
Alone, I hailed a cab and went back to the villa that used to be our home.
I had not even decided what I would say when I saw him again before my eyes fell upon the scene in the courtyard.
Mariam stood there, cradling a three-year-old boy in her arms, laughing and playing with Charlton as though they were a family.
The child noticed me first. Tilting his head with innocent curiosity, he looked up at the man and asked, “Daddy, who’s that lady? Why does she have a key to our house?”
Charlton’s expression faltered for a moment before he quickly recovered.