Daughter took me to the spa and said, “Mom, relax for tomorrow.” There, the receptionist grabbed my arm and whispered, “Don’t trust her. It’s a trap.” So I ran out the back door. When I got home, a surprise awaited me and made my blood run cold…
The shiny black Range Rover glided smoothly down the oak-lined streets of Greenwich. I, Margaret Sterling, 55, leaned my head against the window, watching the red maple leaves of New England autumn. Beside me, my daughter Emily drove, tapping her fingers to the soft jazz music.
“Relax, Mom,” Emily smiled, the bright smile she inherited from her father, Richard. “My wedding is tomorrow. I want you to look your best. The Sanctuary is the most exclusive spa in the state, and reservations are six months in advance.”
I sighed, trying to smile back. Emily and I had not always had a smooth relationship. She always thought I was controlling, and I was just trying to protect her grandfather’s fortune. But this week, Emily had changed. She was gentle, thoughtful, and this spa trip was the sweetest apology.
“Thank you, Emily. I really needed to relax.”
The car turned onto a gravel path, leading deep into the pine forest. At the end of the road was a modern building, glass and concrete, looking cold and isolated rather than relaxing. There was no sign.
“Here we are,” Emily hung up. “Mom, check in first, I have to call the wedding planner. There’s a problem with the white roses.”
I nodded, picked up my bag and walked inside.
The Sanctuary’s reception hall smelled strongly of lavender, but beneath the scent, I smelled antiseptic—the signature scent of a hospital. The silence was eerily quiet.
The receptionist, a young woman with dark circles under her eyes and a name tag that read “Sarah,” looked up at me. When I handed her my ID, her hand froze. She looked at the computer screen, then out the window where Emily’s car was parked, then back at me.
“Are you Margaret Sterling?” Sarah asked, her voice trembling.
“That’s right. My daughter booked me. The… Deep Relaxation Treatment?”
Sarah stood up. She walked around the counter, pretending to lead me to the dressing room. But as she passed me, her cold hand suddenly gripped my wrist, her nails digging painfully into my skin.
She leaned close to my ear, breathing heavily, whispering three words that made my world collapse around me:
“Don’t trust her. Don’t drink the water they gave you. It’s a trap.”
I was stunned. “What did you say…”
“Shh!” Sarah looked around. “This isn’t a spa. This is Willow Creek Sanatorium – a ward for mentally ill patients who need permanent isolation. Your daughter just signed emergency admission papers for you on the grounds of ‘dementia and violent tendencies.’ If you walk through that door, they’ll sedate you and you’ll never come out again.”
My blood froze. Mental hospital? Dementia? I was completely sane! I was the CEO of a real estate company!
“But… why?”
“Conservatorship,” Sarah whispered quickly. “Like Britney Spears. If you’re declared incompetent this afternoon, control of your assets will go to the designated guardian. Your daughter.”
I looked out the window. Emily was still in the car, talking on the phone, her cold eyes staring at the door like a jailer.
“Run,” Sarah pressed her employee badge into my hand. “Back door, through the kitchen, through the woods to the road. Don’t look back.”
I don’t remember how I ran. All I remember is the sound of twigs cracking underfoot, my heart pounding in my chest, and sheer terror. My daughter – the child I bore – was planning to put me in a mental hospital to rob me on the eve of her wedding.
I ran out to the main road and flagged down a delivery truck. The driver kindly gave me a ride back to Greenwich.
On the way home, I tried to call my husband, Richard. No answer. I called my lawyer. No phone. The feeling of isolation enveloped me.
I arrived home at 6 p.m. The large mansion was dark. Richard’s car was still parked in the garage.
I crept to the door with the spare key.
“Richard?” I called softly.
There was no answer. Only the ticking of the grandfather clock echoed in the hallway.
I walked into the living room. And that’s when I saw the “surprise” waiting for me. A surprise that made my blood, which had been boiling with anger, suddenly cool, freeze into ice.
Richard was sitting in his favorite armchair, facing the extinguished fireplace. He held a glass of whisky.
But he didn’t move.
A small, neat bullet hole was in the middle of his forehead. Dried blood ran down his white shirt.
On the coffee table in front of Richard was a pistol – the one I kept in my nightstand drawer for self-defense. And next to the gun was a typewritten piece of paper.
I picked it up with trembling hands. It was a suicide note.
But not Richard’s. It was mine.
“I can’t take it anymore. The voices in my head were getting louder. I was afraid I would hurt everyone. I had killed Richard to free him from the burden of me. And now
I will follow him. Please forgive me, Emily. I love you.”
Below was my signature. A perfect forgery.
I dropped the paper.
The scenario wasn’t to send me to the asylum. That was Plan B.
Plan A – the real plan – was much more devastating.
Emily had killed her father. And she was planning to stage a murder-suicide.
If I stayed at that “Spa,” I would be detained for “insanity.” When the police found Richard’s body and this letter at home, Emily would have a perfect alibi (being at the Spa) and medical evidence (from the Spa) that I was insane. I would be transferred from the sanatorium to life in prison or a forensic psychiatric hospital.
But because I escaped… because I came home…
Click.
The front door opened behind me.
I spun around.
Emily was standing there, still wearing her beautiful dress from this morning. But in her hand She wasn’t holding a bouquet. She was wearing blue rubber gloves.
She looked at me, then at her father’s body, then at the paper in my hand. There was no surprise or fear on her face. Just disappointment, like a child sulking because a toy didn’t work properly.
“Mom,” Emily sighed, closing the door and locking it. “You’re always breaking things. Why can’t you just stay in that hospital?” Sarah is such a loser, I paid her $50,000 to keep you.”
“Sarah…” I stammered. It turned out the receptionist wasn’t nice. She was part of the play. She warned me to make me panic, to make me run away.
Run where? Run home.
She knew I wouldn’t call the police right away, I’d go home and find my husband.
“You killed your father…” I backed away from the fireplace.
“He’s going to change the will,” Emily stepped forward, as casually as if she were talking about the weather. “He found out you and your fiancé embezzled $2 million from the company’s funds to play cryptocurrencies. He’s going to put your future son-in-law in jail. You can’t miss your wedding tomorrow. That wedding is the event of the year, you know?”
Emily picked up the gun on the table – the one with my fingerprints (because it was mine).
“The original plan was for Mom to go crazy in the hospital, and Dad to die at home, shot before she left. But now she’s here…”
Emily smiled, raising the gun and pointing it at me.
“…The scenario will change a little. Mom goes crazy, escapes the hospital, comes home and shoots Dad, then kills herself when I get home and find out. More tragic, but also more reasonable.
“You’d shoot me?” I asked, tears welling up. “I’m your daughter.”
“And you’re the ATM that went wrong,” Emily said coldly. “Goodbye, Mom.”
Emily’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Bang!
A loud bang echoed through the closed living room.
But I didn’t fall.
Emily screamed, the gun flying from her hand. She clutched her bloody right hand, falling to the floor. The gun had backfired.
“What the hell…” Emily screamed in pain.
I stood still, watching my monster daughter writhing. I wasn’t surprised.
“Emily,” I said, my voice strangely calm. “You’re forgetting something. Your father is a former Marine. He always taught me one rule: Never leave a loaded gun in the house without the safety on.”
I walked over to Richard’s body and closed his eyes.
“Before he left this morning, your father sensed something was wrong. He told me that you and your fiancé were acting strangely. He secretly removed the firing pin and bolt from this gun and replaced it with a defective bullet that was designed to detonate the chamber if someone tried to fire it without checking.”
I didn’t believe Richard at that moment. I believed my daughter’s smile. And the price was his life.
Emily stared at me, pained and horrified.
“Mom…”
“Don’t call me Mom,” I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. “Hello, police? Go to Sterling Mansion. There’s a murder. And the killer is lying right at my feet.”
I looked at Emily, the daughter I had loved more than life itself, now a cold-blooded, ambitious stranger.
“You want to have a wedding tomorrow, right?” I told her as police sirens began to sound in the distance. “You’re going to have a ceremony. But not in a church. In a courthouse.”
And when the police arrived, I sat down on the chair across from my husband’s body, holding his cold hand. My blood had run cold since entering this house, and I knew my heart would never be warm again.
