The moment the words "First-Degree Capital Murder" echoed out of the speakers, the color completely vanished from Derek’s face. Up until that second, my sleazy brother-in-law thought the worst-case scenario was a white-collar real estate fraud charge or an attempted assault wrap he could plea-bargain his way out of by blaming Evelyn.
I tapped my iPad a third time, and the 85-inch screen displayed two devastating documents side by side: the official forensic toxicology report signed by Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Aris Thorne, and a high-resolution Walgreens security photograph taken forty-eight hours before Lauren died fourteen months ago. In the photo, Evelyn was standing at the pharmacy counter paying for a prescription of hypertension antagonists and vasoconstrictors with her own credit card—right next to a federal FinCEN bank trace showing $300,000 wired from Lauren’s estate into Marcus Sterling’s Delaware shell account to pay off Evelyn’s Atlantic City casino debts two days after my wife’s funeral.
"Lauren didn't die of a natural brain aneurysm," I said, my voice trembling with raw emotion as dead silence fell over the horrified guests. "My mother poisoned her herbal tea in my kitchen fourteen months ago so she and Marcus could skim three hundred thousand dollars off her estate. And when I locked the rest of Lauren’s money inside an irrevocable trust for little Lily, Evelyn invited Chloe and Derek here this week to finish the job by drowning my three-year-old daughter in that swimming pool!"
For two seconds, nobody moved. Then, Derek lost his mind in pure, animalistic self-preservation.
"Wait a damn minute!" Derek roared, lunging away from Evelyn and grabbing his wife Chloe by the shoulders in front of the entire crowd. "You told me Lauren died of a stroke! You and your psychotic mother told me we were just ripping off Michael’s house deed and cashing out the diamond ring! I didn't sign up for a double homicide needle in the arm, you crazy bitch!"
"Let go of me, you coward!" Chloe screamed, clawing at Derek’s polo shirt as her fake rich-girl poise shattered into pieces. "You’re the one who brought the ultraviolet light into Michael’s study at two in the morning to open his wall safe! You’re the one who set up the First American Title escrow account with Marcus!"
"Yeah? Well, let’s show the cops who sold the stolen ring today!" Derek bellowed, ripping Chloe’s Louis Vuitton handbag right off her shoulder and turning it upside down over the limestone pool deck.
Fifty thousand dollars in crisp, banded hundred-dollar federal bait bills—along with the forged Jewelry District receipt bearing Chloe’s inked thumbprint—rained down across the stone tiles, several bundles blowing straight into the shallow end of the swimming pool.
"Chloe fenced Lauren’s $85,000 engagement ring at 10:45 this morning!" Derek shouted at the two homicide detectives holding Marcus, dropping to his knees with his hands laced behind his head. "I want immunity! I’ll testify against all of them right now! Evelyn poisoned Lauren’s tea, Evelyn punctured the kid’s orange swim vest with a sewing needle, and Chloe and Marcus planned the psychiatric hold to steal the trust fund!"
Screaming like a wildcat, Chloe dove across the patio table and tackled Derek onto the concrete, ripping his designer sunglasses off his face and scratching deep red gouges down his cheeks while Brenda Miller shrieked in the corner and Evelyn kicked at Derek’s ribs in her designer heels, screaming at all of them to shut up.
Before the brawl could go another five seconds, the heavy wooden side gates of the estate burst inward with a deafening crash, the wail of twenty police sirens echoed across the gated subdivision, and Chief Detective Roy Miller marched onto the pool deck flanked by twelve armed Major Crimes and SWAT officers with their weapons drawn!
