Chapter 4 - THE TEST BAXTER FAILED
The police did not come that night.
Margaret threatened to call them.
Emily told her to do it.
Ryan said maybe it was better to “de-escalate” and “get Emily somewhere safe first.” That sentence told Ethan enough to stop everything cold.
“No one is putting my wife anywhere,” he said.
Margaret looked stunned. “Ethan—”
“No.”
The firmness in his voice silenced her for perhaps the first time in his adult life.
He escorted Emily upstairs to the old guest suite and locked the door behind them.
For ten long seconds, neither spoke.
Then Emily pulled the silver packet from her pocket and placed it on the desk between them.
Ethan stared at it.
“Veterinary sedatives,” she said. “Found beside Baxter.”
He lifted his eyes. “Why bury him?”
“Because your mother was already building a story.”
He looked away. “You scared me.”
“Good,” Emily said, then flinched at her own tone. Softer, she added, “I’m sorry. I just… if they called the police before we understood what happened, I knew how it would look.”
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face. “I saw Ryan holding something before Baxter ran at you.”
Emily looked up sharply.
“A whistle?”
He nodded once. “Maybe.”
“You believed me?”
“I believed what I saw.”
That was not the same as total trust, but it was more than uncertainty.
He sat down heavily. “You need to tell me everything you’ve noticed.”
So she did.
Margaret’s comments.
The strange succession papers.
Dr. Lansing’s name.
The way Ryan had snapped his fingers and Baxter flinched.
How Baxter had seemed disoriented before charging her.
Ethan listened without interrupting.
Then he admitted something of his own.
“Mom asked me last month whether you’d ever been treated for panic.”
Emily stared. “What?”
“I told her about one anxiety prescription after your father died. She said she was worried about stress.”
Emily’s face hardened. “She was collecting information.”
“Yes.”
He whispered it, and the shame on his face was almost worse than anger.
At one in the morning, Ethan called the family’s longtime attorney, Richard Solis. By two, Richard was at the estate in a raincoat and with the expression of a man who had already been disappointed by the wealthy too many times.
He listened to the entire story, then gave the only reasonable advice.
“Get the dog exhumed by a private veterinarian before anyone else touches the body.”
Margaret objected immediately when she learned.
“This is monstrous.”
Richard looked at her. “What would be monstrous is allowing a possible poisoning to go unexamined.”
Ryan laughed too quickly. “We’re doing an autopsy on a dog now?”
“Yes,” Richard said. “Particularly since Mrs. Holloway and Mr. Holloway appear to disagree on whether Mrs. Ethan Holloway is mentally unstable or the dog merely had a sudden medical event.”
Margaret’s face went cold.
The vet arrived before dawn.
Baxter’s body was taken discreetly.
So were grass samples and Emily’s packet of sedatives.
Margaret tried once more to seize control by calling Dr. Lansing—the family psychiatrist she kept on retainer for “stress interventions” among board members, which Emily found chilling all by itself. Richard blocked it.
When sunrise finally came, Emily had not slept.
At eight-thirty, Richard returned with another problem.
“There is a petition draft on file with the county clerk,” he said.
Ethan looked up. “For what?”
Richard placed the copy on the table.
Emergency spousal conservatorship evaluation.
Petitioner:
Margaret Holloway.
Supporting affiants:
Margaret Holloway.
Ryan Holloway.
Basis:
Erratic behavior, delusional blame-shifting, danger to property, danger to animals.
Emily read the words slowly.
Danger to animals.
Baxter had not even been dead for twelve hours.
Margaret did not look ashamed. “I was trying to protect this family.”
Richard turned to Ethan. “Your father placed a clause in the Holloway succession trust years ago. If a spouse created a household instability event significant enough to threaten executive judgment, interim control of the company could remain with the family oversight committee.”
Emily looked up. “The sentence I found.”
Richard nodded. “I suspected that was what you saw.”
“And who chairs the oversight committee?” Ethan asked.
Richard did not answer immediately.
Then: “Margaret.”
The room went still.
Margaret drew herself up. “Your father put that language there after the Stedman scandal. It was prudent.”
Ryan added lightly, “No one’s trying to hurt Emily.”
Emily’s laugh came out flat and humorless. “You tried to have me committed before breakfast.”
The vet’s preliminary report arrived an hour later.
Cause of death was not natural.
Baxter had a lethal mixture of human sedatives and rodent toxin in his system.
And the sedatives matched the packet Emily found in the grass.
Ethan read the report, looked at his mother, then at his brother.
“Who had access to the kennel medications?” he asked.
Margaret said nothing.
May you like
Ryan smiled faintly.
“Maybe your wife did.”
