Using a small pair of nail scissors from the vanity drawer, I sliced through the silk interior of the bag. Inside the false bottom, hidden between layers of dense, radio-opaque shielding fabric, was a small, vacuum-sealed plastic pouch.
Inside the pouch were three items:
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A pristine, unexpired diplomatic passport from the Russian Federation, bearing the photograph of my wife, but under the name Elena Rostova.
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A small, silver thumb drive with a physical biometric lock on the casing.
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A vial of clear liquid labeled Succinylcholine—a powerful paralytic that causes total respiratory failure within seconds, leaving absolutely no trace in a standard autopsy.
My knees buckled. I had to catch myself against the sink to keep from crashing to the floor.
The woman I had slept next to, the woman I had shared a mortgage with, the woman I had comforted when her “father” died… was a ghost. A ghost carrying enough lethal poison to kill an entire household.
Suddenly, the bathroom floorboards groaned.
Not in the bathroom itself. In the bedroom just outside.
No Way Out
“David?”
Her voice was right outside the door. Soft. Sweet. Devoid of any human warmth.
I froze, the forged passport in one hand, the vial of paralytic in the other.
“David, honey, are you in there?” The doorknob jiggled. Thank God, I had locked it out of pure instinct when I walked in. “Mom went to bed. I brought you some tea for your headache.”
“Just… using the restroom, Sarah!” I yelled, my voice cracking under the sheer weight of my terror. “I’ll be out in a minute!”
“Okay,” she said. There was a pause. A long, agonizing silence where I could hear nothing but the rush of my own blood in my ears. “Don’t be long. It gets cold fast.”
I heard her footsteps recede into the bedroom.
