Rachael and Kate sat in the dimly lit living room. The silence between them was palpable. They knew they had to dig deeper, to uncover the truth behind Uncle Adam's arrest and Harriet's suspicious behavior.
"I need to get into Uncle Adam's room again," Rachael whispered to Kate. "There must be something we missed."
Kate nodded, her eyes scanning the room for any sign of surveillance. "I'll keep watch. You go."
Rachael crept up to Uncle Adam's room, her heart racing with anticipation. She unlocked the door and slipped inside, her eyes scanning the space for any clues.
As Racheal searched and searched, suddenly, she heard a faint noise coming from the hallway. Footsteps, light and cautious. Rachael's heart skipped a beat as she realized she wasn't alone.
The door creaked open, and a figure slipped inside. Rachael's eyes locked onto the intruder, her breath caught in her throat.
"Mom," Rachael exclaimed, her voice trembling with anger. "What are you doing here?"
Harriet's smile was cold and calculating. "I'm just making sure you don't find anything more incriminating than the police already did."
Rachael's eyes narrowed. "You planted the gun, didn't you?"
Harriet's expression didn't change, but her eyes flickered with a hint of surprise.
"You'll never know for sure, Rachael. But one thing's certain: your uncle Adam will take the fall for this. And you might be next, if you don't mind your business."
"Why are you so evil?" Rachael's voice cracked with betrayal.
Harriet stepped closer, lowering her voice to a hiss.
"Ask your father. Or better yet… ask him in his grave." she let out an evil chuckle.
Rachael froze. Before she could respond, Harriet leaned in, her voice like smoke. "And by the way… that little drug test you took? Came out positive."
"What?" Rachael's voice dropped.
"Substance abuse," Harriet said, mockingly.
"I wasn't wrong about you hallucinating" "Do you want to report your Mom to the police or would you want me to show the police the results?"
Rachael stumbled backward, shaking her head.
"But that's not even possible..."
But later that day, desperate and terrified, she visited a private clinic. The results confirmed that someone had tampered with her system.
Harriet had everything planned. Every move. Every backup. Rachael couldn't blow the whistle, not without implicating herself.
As fate would have it, justice finally swung in Adam's favor. The ballistics report confirmed what Rachael had known all along. The gun found in Adam's drawer wasn't the one that killed Martha. The difference in caliber was a glaring discrepancy that even the most skeptical of minds couldn't ignore. With his name cleared, Adam returned home, his eyes sunken, and his demeanor shattered, like a man who had lost his way. But what happened next left Rachael and Kate stunned. Harriet, the woman who'd seemed so eager to see him behind bars, welcomed Adam back with open arms, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness.
"I have missed you, Adam," she cooed, embracing him with a warmth that felt almost... calculated. Rachael and Kate exchanged a disbelieving glance, their faces mirroring each other's incredulity.
In the weeks that followed, Harriet and Adam's relationship blossomed again, or so it seemed. She cooked for him. Smiled at him, slept beside him. But every night, Adam fell into an unnatural sleep, too deep and too sudden.
Racheal had started to notice things. Little things. Strange things.
The way Harriet grew increasingly restless at night. The soft creak of the stairs past midnight. The faint shuffle of footsteps echoing down the hallway. And always—always—the quiet click of the back door opening and closing.
She watched from her bedroom window more than once, heart thudding, as her mother slipped into the darkness, always alone, always with a large bag clutched tightly in one hand and thick wads of cash barely concealed in the other.
The pattern was too deliberate to ignore.
One evening, unable to shake the unease that had settled over her, Racheal turned to the only person she trusted.
"You need to follow her," she told David quietly, urgency etched in her voice. "Something isn't right."
"But please..." her voice dropped to a whisper, "...you have to be careful. If she sees you—I don't know what she's capable of."
David didn't hesitate. "I'll be careful," he promised.
And so, on one of those quiet, moonless nights, he did.
Keeping his distance, he trailed Harriet through the winding, shadowed roads of Festac, careful to stay hidden behind trees and fences. Her pace was brisk, purposeful. She moved like someone who knew exactly where they were going.
Eventually, her path led her out of town, through the sparse woods that bordered Festac's edge.
Then she stopped.
David crouched behind a cluster of tall shrubs, breath caught in his throat, as he watched Harriet step forward toward a narrow path that led down to the Silent River.
A place most people avoid. A place tainted by too many secrets.
But not Harriet.
She walked straight to the edge, disappearing into the thick veil of trees beyond.
And David followed.
David hid behind thick reeds as Harriet met someone that looked familiar. Harriet had been meeting with different people every midnight at the silent river, but on this very day, it was Oscar.
Their voices echoed through the still night.
"You've been avoiding me," Harriet snapped. "You didn't do the job right."
"I… I did what you asked," Oscar stuttered harshly. "She's dead, isn't she?"
"You used the wrong gun," Harriet hissed through clenched teeth, her voice as sharp as broken glass.
"I gave you one. You used another. That's why Adam is free."
Oscar flinched at the fury in her voice. His lips parted to protest, but only a dry breath escaped.
"Does it matter?" he muttered, trying to stand his ground, though his voice betrayed him.
Harriet's eyes darkened. Slowly, she tilted her head to the side, a cruel smile playing on her lips. Then she laughed, low, twisted, almost inhuman.
"Does it matter?" she repeated, venom lacing her every word. "You really have the nerve to ask me that?"
She stepped forward, boots crunching over dry leaves as the forest closed in around them, the late evening light barely filtering through the trees. The wind stilled. Even the birds had fallen silent.
"Anthony should have taken you out a long time ago," she snarled.
Oscar's legs gave way. He dropped to his knees in the dirt, his hands raised in trembling surrender.
"Please… please don't do this," he begged, his voice quivering. "I... I did everything you asked…"
Harriet's face twisted with disgust. She reached into her coat and pulled out a sleek, black pistol, small, elegant, deadly.
"You did everything except the one thing that mattered," she said coldly. "You failed me."
From a distance, hidden behind a thick cluster of trees, David watched in horror, his breath shallow and his pulse racing. He couldn't move. Couldn't blink. Couldn't even speak.
Oscar was sobbing now. "Harriet, please, I... I didn't mean to…"
She didn't flinch.
"I should've paid you the rest of the money, right?" she said mockingly. "But you don't deserve it."
"No, please..."
"Say hi to Martha for me," she whispered.
The gunshot shattered the silence like a whip-crack.
Oscar's body jerked once, then crumpled forward into the dirt, lifeless. A pool of crimson began to bloom beneath him.
Harriet stood still, the pistol smoking gently in her hand. She stared down at Oscar's corpse with hollow eyes, her chest rising and falling with calm precision. Not a flicker of remorse passed her face.
In the shadows, David backed away slowly, his hands trembling.
He had just witnessed a murder.
Harriet George was far more dangerous than any of them had imagined.
David's hand clamped over his mouth to stifle the cry.
Harriet looked around and then vanished into the woods, the pistol tucked away like it never existed.
Just as David started to crawl out of hiding, two men appeared. Silent. Efficient.
They lifted Oscar's body, wrapped it in a dark tarp, and disappeared without a word.
David froze again. He ran home hours later, his heart hollow, the image of Harriet pulling the trigger burned into his skull.
He told no one. Not even Rachael.
But he knew.
Harriet was worse than a monster. She was a murderer.
David hadn't slept in two days.
The guilt chewed at him. The fear twisted his insides like a knife. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the flash of the muzzle, the slump of Oscar's body, the cold look in Harriet's eyes.
But how could he tell Rachael? She was already teetering on the edge, barely holding it together with everything Harriet had done to her. And if he came forward, what then? Would Harriet come for him next? For Rachael?
The days passed, a blur of fake smiles and forced laughter. Harriet, ever composed, moved through the house like a queen on her throne, baking pies, chatting with neighbors, and even volunteered at church, her voice humming hymns with a serene devotion. To anyone watching, she was the picture of maternal warmth and community spirit far removed from the cold, calculating figure who had stood by the Silent River, gun in hand, Oscar's life slipping away at her feet.
Until one morning.
Rachael burst into David's room, pale and breathless.