I stood frozen in the center of the Upper East Side apartment, the knife still gripped tightly in my hand. On the marble countertop, my half-prepared breakfast—the boiled eggs and sliced avocado—suddenly looked repulsive. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, erratic rhythm that made my ears ring.
“You’ve killed my daughter!”
The words repeated in my mind, a grotesque loop.”s” My hands began to shake so violently that the knife slipped from my fingers, clattering loudly against the tiled floor.
I grabbed my phone, my thumb hovering over Lucy’s contact name. I pressed call.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Come on, Lucy. Pick up. Please, for once in your life, pick up your phone,” I whispered, pacing the length of the kitchen.
“The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please leave a message—”
I slammed my thumb down to disconnect and dialed again. Nothing. On the third attempt, it went straight to voicemail. She had either turned her phone off, or she was…
I refused to let my mind finish that thought.
I opened my messages and typed with trembling fingers: LUCY, DO NOT EAT THE CAKE. DO NOT TOUCH IT. CALL ME IMMEDIATELY.
I hit send. A minute passed. The text remained on “Sent.” Not “Delivered.”
Desperate, I called Sophia back. The line was busy. I called again. Still busy. She was likely trying to reach Lucy herself, or calling an ambulance, or—worse—trying to figure out how to cover her tracks.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, knocking the breath from my lungs. The cake. The expensive, flawless, artisanal mousse cake from Manhattan. It hadn’t been a peace offering. It hadn’t been a gesture of motherly love to “brighten our day.” It was meant for me. Or perhaps for me and Andrew, though Sophia had made sure to ask if I had tried it yet. She knew Andrew was in Boston. She knew I would be alone.
It was meant to kill me.
The Midday Silence
By 3:00 PM, the silence in the apartment had become suffocating. I had spent the last several hours pacing, checking the news, and trying to call Andrew.
