Page 167 of Sins of Arrogance

“The knife and the Eth­yl­ene Gly­col make sense, but what is the blood pres­sure med­i­ca­tion for?” He doesn’t sound the least bit wor­ried I had what amounts to a deadly poi­son in my pos­ses­sion the en­tirety of our mar­riage. “It’s an un­re­li­able poi­son and the amount nec­es­sary to cause death would show up on a rudi­men­tary tox screen af­ter death.”

“It’s not meant to kill, or even maim.”

“Then what?”

“If a woman’s hus­band is too de­mand­ing in the bed­room, I have it on good au­thor­ity that the right dose will in­tro­duce him to his new friend, Ed.”

An ar­rested ex­pres­sion takes over Mick’s fea­tures. “Erec­tile dys­func­tion?”

“You catch on quick.” I grab a pair of un­der­wear and slide them on un­der the blan­ket.

“You have never used it on me.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You didn’t use the Eth­yl­ene Gly­col ei­ther.”

“No.” Then a mem­ory stirs. “You’re the rea­son I couldn’t find my box when I first got back from The Mar­lowe Cen­ter.”

When I’d fi­nally come across it in the top of my closet be­hind a stor­age con­tainer of me­men­tos from my years at board­ing school, I’d as­sumed I put it there and for­got.

There were a lot of things I for­got or re­mem­bered like they were a dream from the months af­ter Fitz’s birth.

“Aye.”

“I never even thought about us­ing it. When I took the sleep­ing pills, I wasn’t try­ing to kill my­self. Not con­sciously. I just wanted the pain to stop, for the chaotic and neg­a­tive thoughts to be quiet for a while.”

We’ve never talked about this. I never thought we could.

I’m not sure why I feel like now is the right time to do it though.

Mick’s jaw clenches. “If you had tried, you would have found it com­pletely in­ef­fec­tive.”

“You re­placed the Eth­yl­ene Gly­col with a placebo?” I don’t know why that shocks me.

He would not have been will­ing to risk me killing him.

“Aye. The blood pres­sure med­i­ca­tion too. And the knife is so dull, it’ll barely cut but­ter.”

I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh when re­ally, noth­ing should be funny right now. “You’re very thor­ough.”

“Al­ways. You kept the box on a high shelf, but one day Fitz might have found it.”

“I know.” I squirm un­der the blan­ket, tug­ging a pair of leg­gings up my thighs. “That’s why I started lock­ing it in the drawer in my van­ity. But Fitz was just a baby when you made the switch.”

“I wasn’t wor­ried about Fitz when I did it.”

“You were wor­ried about me.”

“Your emo­tions be­came er­ratic when you started tak­ing the fer­til­ity treat­ments.”

He’s right. They had. “If there was a neg­a­tive side ef­fect I didn’t ex­pe­ri­ence, I don’t know what it is.”

“You were too young to be put on those drugs.”

“I was an adult.”

“If I had known about the in­creased chance of early death for a woman who gets preg­nant as a teenager, I would have in­sisted on wait­ing un­til you were in your twen­ties.” A glim­mer of some­thing shows in Mick’s eyes.