After she left the room, I walked to the bathroom, locked the door, and pressed the tissue into a plastic bag taped behind the toilet tank—Detective Morrison’s instruction.
The police would collect it later.
Margaret’s tenderness increased over the next two days in a way that would have looked romantic to anyone who didn’t know the script. She made soup. She brought blankets. She called me “dear” more than she had in months. And she brought pills three times a day now instead of two.
Each time, I pretended to swallow. Each time, I felt sick from fear and the taste of poison I didn’t ingest.
On Saturday night she made my favorite dinner: pot roast with roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. She opened an expensive bottle of wine we usually saved for anniversaries.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked, even though my mouth felt numb.
Margaret smiled, and the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Do we need an occasion to enjoy each other’s company?” she said lightly. “You seem so tired lately. I just wanted to do something nice.”
Nice.
I ate slowly while cameras watched her watch me. She poured more wine. She asked me gentle questions designed to sound like care and function like confirmation.
“How’s your chest?” she asked.
“Better,” I lied.
“And the dizziness?”
“Comes and goes.”
She nodded, satisfied.
After dessert she brought me pills again, her gaze sharp, following my throat as I “swallowed.” The wine made it easier to pretend I was weaker than I was. I let my shoulders slump. I let my eyes droop. I played the part of a man fading.
Margaret’s hand brushed my cheek with something like affection, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from flinching.
That night in bed, I stared at the ceiling while Margaret breathed beside me. The warmth of her body used to mean comfort. Now it meant proximity to someone who wanted me dead.
Around 2:00 a.m., she slipped out of bed.
I kept my eyes half-closed, listening.
She padded downstairs. The hallway camera caught her moving like someone who’d done this before.
I heard her voice in the study, hushed. The microphones caught everything.
“It’s almost done,” Margaret whispered.
Dr. Prescott’s voice responded faintly through the speakerphone. “How weak is he?”
“He can barely get out of bed,” Margaret said, and there was excitement in her whisper. “I’m doubling the dose tonight.”
“And if he doesn’t go?” Prescott asked.