Page 98 of Poison Wood

“Give me a second.” I tap out a message to Carl.

Have Erin check Grey Wolf Capital. Possibly sending money to the Adairs.

Then I send a picture of the envelope to Carl as well.

Saw this yesterday.

A message comes back immediately:

I’m not even going to ask where you saw it.

My phone buzzes a second time. I look at the number but don’t recognize it, so I let it go to voicemail.

“I’m back,” I say to Kat and Summer.

“Johnny’s the one who benefited from Heather dying,” Kat says. “Got him out of prison.”

“That’s true,” I say. “Listen, I need to go, but I would still like the three of us to get together in person.”

“Sure,” Kat says.

“I thought we were leaving,” Summer whines.

“We have time to visit before we leave, Summer,” Kat says in her take-charge voice.

My phone buzzes a third time, and this time I think the number could be Rosalie’s. “I’ll text you both later. I gotta go.”

I answer the incoming call as I head to the laundry room to feed the dogs.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Rita Meade?”

Shit, it’s not Rosalie. It’s a man. I scoop food into the dogs’ bowls. “Yes.”

“This is Ethan Langley withPeoplemagazine.”

“No comment,” I say, walking back to the kitchen.

I’m about to end the call when he says, “I thought you might want to comment on your mother’s death.”

I crack my neck and work to control the thundering pace of my heart. “Excuse me?”

“The falsified death certificate.”

I end the call and set my phone on the counter as if it were made of plutonium. I stare at it like it will apologize to me for the words I just heard come out of it. What the hell?

The house creaks around me. The dogs chew their bones under the kitchen table. I gaze at my father’s empty chair.

You owe me.

I fling open the door to my father’s study and punch in the code on the bottom drawer. I yank the death certificate out and the note attached. Then I start digging through the drawer, looking for anything out of the ordinary,and I hear a crinkling noise again when I grab the denim shirt. I squeeze the shirt between my hands and feel it. Something in the front pocket.

I reach in and extract a folded sheet of paper. Some small voice, like a little girl’s, tells me not to open it. But the truth is worth knowing, even if it hurts.

When I open and read the report in my hand, the truth does more than hurt; it knocks the breath out of me.

The folded paper is a toxicology report with my mother’s name on it.