UNTIL MY DYING CALL UNCOVERED A DEADLY CONSPIRACY THAT WOULD COST THEM EVERYTHING.

"Nurse nearby?" my father asked. His voice sounded like dry gravel, sharp and stripped of any emotion.

"No, Dad. She’s at the nursing station down the hall. What are you talking about?" I pressed the disposable burner phone so hard against my ear that the plastic dug into my cartilage.

"Listen to me carefully, Claire," he commanded. "Do not drink the water on your bedside table. Do not let them give you another dose of the intravenous anti-nausea drip. If a nurse named Miller comes in with a syringe, refuse it."

My breath caught in my dry throat. "Nurse Miller was the one who set up my bag thirty minutes ago."

"Unplug the IV line. Now."

Pain shot through my abdomen like broken glass as I leaned forward, reaching with trembling fingers toward the plastic catheter taped to the back of my hand. The medical tape tore at my skin. I didn't care. I clamped the plastic valve shut and wrenched the needle out. Blood welled up, bright and red, dripping onto the pristine hospital sheet.

"It's out," I gasped.

"Good. The doctors didn't give you three days to live because your liver is failing on its own, Claire," my father said, every word hitting me like a physical blow. "Someone has been giving you concentrated doses of thallium. Rat poison. Tasteless, odorless, completely soluble in liquid."

The room spun. My father, Arthur Vance, had retired as the Chief of Homicide for the Chicago Police Department eight years ago. He didn't make wild guesses. He didn't bluff.

"Ethan?" My voice was barely a squeak.

"Ethan bought forty acres of land in Montana last month under an offshore LLC," my dad stated coldly. "Jennifer Miller—your husband’s mistress—isn’t an interior designer, honey. Her maiden name is Jennifer Hayes. She’s a certified compounding pharmacy tech who worked at St. Jude Memorial until she was fired two years ago for missing inventory."

The walls of room 412 seemed to close in around me.

Every morning for the past four months, Ethan had kissed my cheek and placed a steaming mug of organic green tea on my nightstand. *To keep your energy up, sweetheart,* he would say, stroking my hair. And his mother, Diane, had insisted on bringing over homemade elderberry syrup twice a week to *boost my immune system.*

They weren't nursing me. They were murdering me.

"Dad," I whispered, the rage finally burning away the paralyzing terror. "They think I'm going to die by Friday. Diane literally smiled in my face. She said our house was finally going to be hers."

"Let them think you're dying," my father ordered. "Marcus is waiting in an unmarked ambulance at the emergency bay right now. You’re leaving that hospital tonight."

"Marcus?"

Marcus Cole had been my father’s most trusted detective before he left the force to start a private corporate intelligence firm. He was also the boy from next door who had carried my books home in high school—the boy I had pushed away eight years ago when I foolishly fell for Ethan’s polished, sociopathic charm.

"Marcus has the lab results from the blood sample I swiped from your lab draw yesterday morning," Dad said. "Claire, the state prosecutor won't move on circumstantial evidence. Ethan’s family has judges in their pocket through Diane’s country club connections. If you walk out of that hospital alive right now and accuse them, they’ll destroy the evidence, claim you're delusional from illness, and cover their tracks."

"So what do I do?"

"You die," Dad said plainly. "To the world, to the doctors, and most importantly, to Ethan."

A quiet knock sounded at my door.

I whipped my head around. The silhouette of a nurse appeared against the frosted glass.

"Hide the phone," Dad whispered. "Don't say another word."

I shoved the phone beneath the mattress just as the door clicked open. Nurse Miller walked in, holding a fresh IV bag in her rubber-gloved hands. She gave me a chilling, practiced smile.