It started as a perfect Saturday: sunlit highway, open windows, my seven-year-old daughter Emma humming in the backseat. I felt peaceful—until her small voice cut through the music.
“Mom… the AC smells weird. My head hurts.”
Her face was pale, her breaths shallow. Alarm shot through me. The smell was sharp, chemical, wrong. I swerved to the shoulder. “Out. Now.”
We scrambled into the grass. Emma clutched our dog, trembling. My stomach dropped when I went back to the car. Behind the glove box panel lay five capsules, leaking fluid—planted. Poison. Someone had rigged our car to kill us.
My mind raced to David, my husband. The man I’d been worried about for months—the secretive phone calls, the mysterious messages from “Amanda.” Could he have tried to harm us?
Sirens screamed as I dialed 911. Paramedics rushed Emma. Detectives arrived. But the nightmare didn’t end there—it had begun weeks earlier.
Emma’s teacher called. A classmate’s mother accused my daughter of bullying—lies seeded to isolate her. And Christine, my so-called best friend, had been hovering too close, too helpful. Something clicked: the “accidents” weren’t random.
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