Page 25 of The Only One Left

I shrugged. “I guess.”

Detective Vick opened a folder in front of him, inside of which was the coroner’s report on my mother’s death. “It says here your mother died of an overdose of prescription painkillers and that you, acting as her caregiver, had been the one to find her body.”

“That’s correct.”

“How did you feel when you realized your mother was dead?”

I thought back to that morning. How I woke early, took one look at the gray-streaked sky, and just knew my mother was gone. Before crossing the hall to her room, I could have woken my father, who had taken to sleeping on the couch to give my mother more space in bed. Wecould have checked on her together, sparing me the burden of being the one to find her dead. Instead, I peeked into her bedroom and found my mother with her head on her pillow, her eyes closed, her hands folded over her chest. Finally, she was at peace.

“Sad,” I said. “And relieved.”

Detective Vick arched a brow. His eyes were no longer kind. Instead, they radiated suspicion. “Relieved?”

“That she was no longer suffering.”

“I suppose it’s natural to think that.”

“It is,” I replied, with more bite than was appropriate under the circumstances. I couldn’t help it.

“Your employer, Mr. Gurlain, told me it was standard procedure to lock away all pills while you’re asleep to prevent patients from having access to them. Is that true?”

I nodded.

“I’ll need you to answer that, Kit,” Detective Vick said with a nod toward the tape recorder.

“Yes,” I said.

“But Mr. Gurlain also told me you confessed to not doing that with the pills your mother overdosed on.”

“I didn’t confess,” I said, thrown off by the word.

“So youdidput the pills away?”

“No,” I said. “I left them out. But I didn’t confess. That makes me sound guilty of something. I simplytoldMr. Gurlain I left them out.”

“Have you ever left medication out like that before?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Ever.”

“So this was the first time you forgot to lock away the pills like you’re supposed to?”

“Yes,” I said, sighing the word as my frustration increased. I looked again to the tape recorder and wondered how the sigh would sound when played back. Impatient? Guilty?

“Did you intentionally leave them out?” Detective Vick asked.

“No. It was an accident.”

“I find that hard to believe, Kit.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“For the twelve years you’ve been a caregiver, you’ve never once left medication within a patient’s reach. The one time you do, the patient just happens to overdose. But not just any patient. Your very own mother, who was in so much pain that you begged her doctor to prescribe the very drugs that killed her. And when she died, you admit to feeling relieved. That doesn’t sound like an accident to me, Kit.”

I continued to eye the tape recorder, the reels turning and turning and turning.

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