“Legal, yes,” I said. “But suspicious. Especially when we reviewed his medical records. Richard never had heart problems before marrying you. But during the two years of your marriage, he visited the doctor six times, complaining of dizziness, nausea, weakness—symptoms consistent with digitalis poisoning.”
Rob turned pale.
“Poisoning?” he whispered.
“Digitalis is a substance extracted from foxglove plants,” Spencer explained. “In small, constant doses, it causes symptoms that look like natural heart problems. In sufficiently high doses, it causes a fatal heart attack.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Chelsea said, but her voice trembled slightly. “You don’t have proof of that.”
“You’re right. We don’t,” I said. “Richard was cremated. But we have his daughter, Patricia Miller, who finally agreed to talk to us.”
I signaled again. Linda pressed something on her laptop. From the restaurant speakers, an audio recording began to play. It was the voice of a middle-aged woman.
“I always knew Chelsea killed my father,” Patricia’s voice said. “He was a healthy man until he married her. He started getting sick little by little—loss of appetite, confusion, extreme fatigue. We begged him to get a full checkup, but Chelsea always said he was fine, that it was just stress. One night, he simply dropped dead in the living room. She cried at the funeral, but I saw her counting the money when she sold my father’s house a week later.”
Chelsea stood up abruptly.
“That bitch always hated me,” she snapped. “She was jealous because her father loved me more than her.”
“Sit down,” I said in a firm voice. “Because I’m not done yet.”
I changed the photo on the tablet. Now Franklin Adams appeared.
“Franklin Adams,” I said. “Fifty-eight years old. He fell down the stairs of his house. He died three weeks later. You inherited $3,200,000. The security cameras were conveniently broken that night.”
“It was an accident,” Chelsea insisted.
“A very convenient accident,” I said. “Especially considering that Franklin had updated his will a week before, leaving you everything. And especially suspicious when we spoke with his personal doctor, who told us that Franklin was considering divorcing you because he had discovered suspicious transfers from his bank account.”
Rob looked at me.
“Is that true?” he asked.
“Completely true,” Spencer replied. “We have bank statements showing transfers of $150,000 over three months from Franklin’s account to a Cayman Islands account—an account shared by Chelsea and Gerald Hayes.”
Chelsea was livid now.
“Those are lies,” she said.
“They’re not,” I interrupted. “And then there’s Joseph Vega—and his son Paul.”
I placed another photo on the table. A young man of twenty-six, smiling in a university graduation photo.
“Paul Vega,” I said. “Civil engineer, like his father. He disappeared six months after you married Joseph. He left a text message saying he was going abroad. He has never been heard from again.”
“That boy decided to leave on his own,” Chelsea said.
“He didn’t,” I said firmly. “Because we found Paul.”
The silence was absolute. Even the restaurant noise seemed to stop.
“What?” Chelsea whispered.
Linda approached with another laptop. A video appeared on the screen. It was a thin young man with an unkempt beard, sitting in what looked like a hospital room. I pressed play.
The young man in the video began to speak.
“My name is Paul Vega Rodríguez. I am thirty years old. Four years ago, Chelsea Brooks—my father’s wife—drugged me with something in my coffee. When I woke up, I was in a place I didn’t recognize. A man named Gerald Hayes told me that if I returned to the States or contacted my father, he would make sure my father had a fatal accident. He gave me money, a fake passport, and sent me to Guatemala. I’ve lived there ever since, afraid to return. But when investigator Davis found me and told me that Chelsea was doing the same thing to another family, I knew I had to speak up.”
Chelsea collapsed into her chair. Her face had lost all color.
“No,” she muttered. “No…”
“Paul is in protective custody now,” Spencer said. “He is going to testify. And with his testimony, plus the recordings we have of you, plus the bank statements, plus the testimonies of the previous families… Chelsea, you are going to spend the rest of your life in prison.”
“And Gerald Hayes,” I added. “He already sang, by the way. When we showed him all the evidence, he made a deal with the prosecution. He confessed everything in exchange for a reduced sentence. He gave us details of every case, every scam, every crime.”
Rob had his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
“My God,” he whispered. “My God…”
Chelsea looked at me with pure hatred.
“You were always a damn meddler,” she spat.
“No,” I replied. “I am a mother protecting her family. And I am a former commander who knows how to recognize a criminal when I see one.”
I stood up. Counselor Rodriguez took some documents from his briefcase.
“The documents you signed at my house are completely void, by the way,” I said. “The coercion clause automatically invalidates them. My property is still mine. And Ethan is under my full legal custody now. Rob signed the papers yesterday.”
I looked at my son. He nodded, tears in his eyes.
