Chapter 4 - Rebecca’s Prescription Was Not Rebecca’s Plan
Rebecca arrived at the police station furious.
Not frightened.
Not yet.
She was thirty-one, divorced, a pediatric occupational therapist, and one of the few people in Trevor’s family who had occasionally challenged Margaret openly. I had always considered her inconsistent rather than cruel. She could defend me at Thanksgiving and then ignore me for two months after Margaret complained I was “divisive.”
The prescription was legitimate.
Rebecca had undergone a minor procedure and received medication afterward.
She took two doses.
Then the bottle disappeared.
She assumed she had misplaced it.
“When?” Detective Morales asked.
“About a week before the boys died.”
“Who had access?”
Rebecca stared at her.
“My mother.”
Why?
Margaret stayed at Rebecca’s apartment overnight after the procedure.
Did Rebecca give her the medication?
“No.”
Did Margaret ever ask?
Rebecca hesitated.
“She asked what they gave me.”
That was different.
“How specifically?”
“She said she wanted to know because Trevor had trouble sleeping and maybe he should ask his doctor for something similar.”
Trevor looked sick when he heard.
He had never asked Margaret for sleep medication.
Then Rebecca’s fear arrived.
Not for herself.
For memory.
She began recalling the day Margaret left her apartment.
The prescription had been in a bathroom cabinet.
Margaret packed Rebecca’s toiletries into a bag because she was “helping tidy.”
Rebecca did not check the medication afterward.
She gave police permission to review texts.
One message from Margaret that week:
Feeling any side effects?
Rebecca:
Mostly sleepy.
Margaret:
How long does it take?
Rebecca:
Mom, I’m not your pharmacist.
At the time, meaningless.
Now ugly.
Still, evidence had to prove more than suspicion.
Bottle residue results became crucial.
The spare bottle from my diaper bag contained traces of the same compound.
Not enough to determine the exact original quantity.
Enough to show contact.
I stopped sleeping almost entirely after that.
Every time I closed my eyes, I imagined those bottles.
Emma seeing Margaret shake them.
My sons drinking from them.
My daughter eating cookies in the next room because an adult told her silence was a game.
I started blaming myself in new ways each hour.
Why did I let them sleep there?
Why didn’t I listen when Margaret complained about them?
Why did I accept one night off?
Dr. Levin, the grief counselor assigned through victim services, interrupted me the first time I said:
“I sent them there.”
“You allowed a grandmother to care for her grandchildren. That is not consent to harm.”
“I should have known.”
“Based on what information available then?”
“She hated me.”
“People can dislike a daughter-in-law without harming infants.”
That distinction mattered.
Guilt loves hindsight because hindsight knows how the story ends.
Parents do not.
Then police recovered Margaret’s phone.
Deleted texts had been partially preserved in cloud backups.
One thread with Rebecca contained nothing directly incriminating beyond the medication questions.
Another thread was with Trevor.
Months of pressure.
You’re wasting your inheritance.
Claire keeps breeding responsibilities.
Your father would be ashamed.
Three children before distribution is financial suicide.
Trevor sometimes defended me.
Sometimes ignored her.
Sometimes complained.
That hurt.
One message after a sleepless night:
Claire is exhausted and angry all the time. The twins never stop.
Margaret:
Then stop pretending this is the life you wanted.
Trevor:
I love my kids.
Margaret:
Love doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice everything.
Trevor never answered.
I wanted to scream at him for giving Margaret access to our weakest moments.
Instead, I asked:
“Did you ever tell her you regretted the twins?”
“No.”
“Did you ever say life would be easier without them?”
Trevor’s face collapsed.
“Once.”
The room went still.
“When?”
“A month ago. We’d been awake all night. Noah had an ear infection. I told Mom I missed the life Claire and I had before three kids.”
I stared at him.
“Exactly what words?”
He swallowed.
“I said sometimes I wished we could go back to when it was just us and Emma.”
Grief can turn a careless sentence into a blade.
Trevor began crying.
“I didn’t mean I wanted them gone.”
I believed him.
That did not make the sentence harmless.
Margaret may have heard permission where none existed.
Then Detective Morales opened another recovered text.
Margaret to an unknown prepaid number:
He won’t do it. I may have to make the problem smaller myself.
The message was sent two days before the twins died.
The number had been disconnected.
But cell records showed its final active location near Margaret’s house.
And its subscriber data led investigators toward someone none of us knew.
A man named Calvin Rusk.
May you like
Former employee of Edward’s family business.
Cliffhanger: Margaret had been communicating with an unknown former employee about making Trevor’s “problem smaller”—suggesting the twins’ deaths may have been tied not only to family hatred, but to the trust Edward left behind.
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