«One day you’ll regret siding with him over me.»
Reyes wrote it down verbatim.
«That’s important. Shows motive resentment.»
«Motive’s not new,» I said.
«Method is.»
Later that afternoon I went to see Robert. He was sitting up pale but alert the TV on low. Linda was by his side knitting something dark blue.
They found something in the whiskey I told him quietly. Robert’s brows pulled together.
«Like bad storage, like poison,» I said.
«White snake root. Gary tested it twice.»
Linda’s hands froze mid-stitch.
«Frank. I’m sorry,» I said.
«I didn’t know. God help me I didn’t know.»
Robert shook his head.
«Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t pour it in there.»
«No,» I said but I put it in your hands.
Driving home that evening the weight in my chest wasn’t just from my heart condition. It was knowing that every mile I drove was a mile closer to whatever came next. Ethan had crossed a line you don’t uncross not just with me but with his own wife’s father.
At a red light I caught myself gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I thought about the day he was born the first time he’d wrapped his tiny hand around my finger and I thought about the hand that had written those cold words on the package. The next day Gary called again.
«Frank. I dug a little deeper. White snake root isn’t exactly common in bulk.»
«There are agricultural controls. Someone had to grow it or get it from a controlled source so not just some wild plant he picked off the side of the road.»
«Nope. And the way it was processed extracted, reduced, blended into the whiskey. It’s careful work.»
«Like someone was testing how much they could use without changing the taste.»
That detail chilled me more than anything. Testing meant practice and practice meant intent. Reyes came by in the evening with an update.
«We’ve got probable cause to get a search warrant for Ethan’s property garage shed and any storage units. The judge will need the lab confirmation from our team but Gary’s report gets us most of the way.»
«Do it fast,» I said.
«He’s not the type to wait around if he smells trouble.»
Reyes studied me.
«Mr. Dalton. When this moves forward it’s going to get ugly. Are you ready for that?»
I thought about Robert’s pale face, the monitors beeping beside his bed.
«Ugly’s already here.»
That night the house felt too quiet. I double checked the locks, the thread I’d strung low across the inside of the front door frame and the motion sensor light in the back. A habit from my service days, always know if someone’s been where they shouldn’t.
I sat at the kitchen table with the fireproof box open reading through my cards like chapters. Each one was its piece of the story. I wondered what the last card would say.
Just after midnight a noise woke me a soft clink like glass on wood. I got up, moved to the living room. Through the front door’s frosted pane I saw a shadow moving away down the steps.
By the time I opened the door the street was empty. At my feet was a small square box wrapped in brown paper. No ribbon this time.
No note. I didn’t touch it. Called Reyes instead.
He told me to step away, wait for an officer. When Patel arrived he crouched to inspect it, then whistled low.
«Feels like another bottle,» he said.
«Another whiskey.»
He nodded.
«Could be, could be something else.»
They took it without opening it in front of me. The next day Reyes confirmed it wasn’t whiskey, just an empty decanter, but inside where liquid should have been was a folded piece of paper with two words. Next time.
That was the moment the case stopped being about evidence alone. It was about time. How much of it did we have before he tried again?
The morning after Reyes called early.
«Judge signed the warrant. We’re serving it tomorrow morning. I want you to stay put.»
«Keep your head down.»
«Not my first rodeo,» I said.
«Maybe not. But it might be your last if you’re not careful.»
That day dragged like a bad leg. I kept myself busy fixing a loose hinge on the back gate, tightening the screws on the porch rail. Busy work just to keep from staring at the road waiting for a truck I recognized.
Around five, Linda called. Robert’s coming home tomorrow. Doctor says he’s stable.
That bit of good news didn’t lighten me much. If anything, it made me more aware of what we’d almost lost. By nightfall, I’d set out a fresh card for the box warrant signed.
Search tomorrow. I sat in the chair by the front window watching the last of the light drain from the street. The lamppost flickered on.
Somewhere, a dog barked twice and fell silent. I thought about the word Gary had used precise. About how someone can use precision for building or breaking.
And how my son had chosen the latter. I didn’t sleep much. Every sound seemed louder.
Every shadow seemed closer. When the first light came, I poured coffee I didn’t drink, sat at the table, and waited for the phone to ring. It rang at 743.
«Reyes.»
«We’re rolling.»
And with that, Part 5 ended, not with an answer, but with the sharp intake of breath before one. They say you can’t prepare yourself to see your child in handcuffs. I wasn’t seeing it yet, but I knew it was coming.
What you can prepare for is the silence the moment when the truth starts climbing out of the dark corners, and you realize it’s not going back in. At 743 AM, Reyes had said, We’re rolling. By 815, I was sitting two blocks from Ethan’s house, watching from behind the cracked windshield of my old Ford, as the black and whites pulled up in front of his driveway.
I hadn’t told Reyes I’d be there. He’d have told me to stay home. But there’s a difference between being warned, and being scared off.
This was my fight, too, even if I wasn’t holding the warrant. Ethan’s place sat on a corner lot, the kind of suburban box with vinyl siding, and a lawn too perfect to be natural. I watched as two officers approached the door, Reyes right behind them.
One knocked. A long pause. Then the door opened, and there he was, my son, wearing a faded St. Louis Cardinals t-shirt and a face I barely recognized.
I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw the stiff way he crossed his arms the half step back when Reyes held up the paper. The officers entered, and Ethan followed, jaw-tight. I stayed in the truck engine off hands on the wheel.
The minutes stretched. I imagined the sound of drawers opening boxes sliding across shelves, the rustle of paper. I’d been in enough searches during my service years to know the rhythm.
Quick sweep, then slow sift. My phone buzzed. A text from Reyes.
Found something. Will update. That something came into view twenty minutes later when an officer carried a plastic evidence bag to the patrol car.
Even from where I sat, I could see the label. Same brand. Same serial style as the whiskey Ethan had sent me.
Only this one was half empty. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe almost.
Because finding that bottle wasn’t the end. It was the beginning of the end. At 9.05 Reyes stepped outside, scanned the street, and spotted my truck.
He walked over, leaned down to the open window.
«You shouldn’t be here,» he said.
«Too late for that. What did you find?»
«A couple more bottles from the same batch. One open, one sealed. We’ll get them tested, but there’s residue in the open, one white powder.»
«Faint. Same as what Gary found.»
I swallowed hard.
«That’s enough. It’s enough to push this forward. But Frank… «
He hesitated.
«We also found a notebook. Handwritten coded in parts. Gary might be able to help us with it, but from what I skimmed it reads like dosage notes.»
«Trials.»
The word trials landed heavily. So Robert wasn’t the first Reyes didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
I sat back, eyes on the house. Inside somewhere was the boy I’d taught to ride a bike, the teenager I’d driven to his first job, the young man I’d stood beside when he married Leia. And now?
Now there was a man who kept dosage notes. A man who could have been the reason Robert nearly died. Reyes’ radio crackled.
He straightened.
«They’re bringing him out. You sure you want to see this?»
«I’ve already seen enough,» I said.
But I didn’t drive away. The front door opened. Ethan stepped out, flanked by two officers.
His wrists were cuffed in front of him, his chin, high eyes cold. He scanned the street until they landed on me. Our eyes locked.
No words. No nod. Just that stare, the kind you give someone you once knew, but no longer claim.
They put him in the back of the cruiser. I stayed put until the car pulled away, the reflection of the morning sun catching on the glass. Reyes came back over.
«He’s going downtown. We’ll book him start the interview. He’ll probably lawyer up.»
«I know,» I said.
«What about the notebook?»
«I’ll get it copied before it goes into full evidence. If you’re up for it, you can look, see if any of the dates match something you remember.»
That afternoon at the station, Reyes laid the notebook on the table between us. The handwriting was Ethan’s unmistakable loops on the G, the way he pressed hard enough to dent the page. Some entries were dated with numbers beside them.
Others were symbols, a triangle, a slash, an asterisk. Gary joined us via speakerphone, his voice crackling through the line.
«That triangle, that shorthand for half dose in some veterinary circles. And the asterisk usually means observe for delayed effect.»
I flipped to a page dated six months ago. Next to the date was a single word test. Then a triangle.
Then R.C. My stomach turned. R.C. Robert Carson.
Reyes wrote it down.
«So he’s been thinking about this for months.»
Two pages later I saw another set of initials F.D., my own. Next to it, no triangle. No half dose.
Just a solid number bigger than the rest. Gary’s voice was quiet.
«That’s a lethal dose, Frank.»
For a moment the room tilted. I steadied myself with a hand on the table.
«So Robert wasn’t the only target.»
«No,» Reyes said.
«You were the other.»
I drove home in silence. The notebook’s images burned into my mind. Every meal, every drink I’d had in the last year replayed in my head looking for moments he could have acted.
I thought of that whiskey bottle sitting in my cabinet for days before I gave it to Robert. I thought about what would have happened if I’d decided to drink just one glass for old times’ sake. By evening the local news had it.
Local man arrested in alleged poisoning attempt. They didn’t use Ethan’s name yet, but the description was enough for anyone who knew us to fill in the blanks. Linda called.
«The neighbors are talking. Robert’s furious says if Ethan shows his face at the house again, he’ll… «
She trailed off.
«You okay?»
«Not really. But I’m not dead. That’s something.»
That night I opened the fireproof box again. Added a new card, FD initials in notebook. Lethal dose.
Slid it in next to the others. The box was getting full. I sat on the porch, the air heavy with summer heat, thinking about the difference between justice and closure.
Justice can come in a courtroom. Closure, that’s trickier. Two days later Reyes called early.
«Frank is lawyers angling for a deal. Claims Ethan didn’t know the whiskey was tainted, that he bought it from a friend and didn’t check it. But with the notebook, that’s a hard sell.»
«What happens if he pleads out lighter sentence? Maybe no trial. But it’s still prison time.»
«Question is, do you want to see him in court?»
I looked out at the street, the same one Ethan had learned to ride his bike on and thought about the weight of my answer. They say every man has a line he won’t cross. I used to think mine was family.
No matter what Ethan did, I told myself I’d never push him so far he couldn’t find his way back. But that was before the whiskey, before Robert in a hospital bed, before I found my initials in that notebook next to a number that meant you don’t wake up. Now the line felt like a chalk mark in the rain, fading fast.
The morning after Reyes called, I didn’t get out of bed right away. The ceiling fan ticked slowly overhead and my mind kept circling the same thought. If I say yes to a trial, I’ll be the man who put his son in prison for a long, long time.
If I say no, I’ll be the man who let him walk after trying to kill me. Either way, there’s no going back. By 9am I was at the station.
Reyes was in the interview room leaning over a stack of papers. Across from him sat Ethan’s lawyer, a wiry man with silver hair and an expression like he’d already won. Ethan wasn’t there.
They’d kept him in holding. Reyes waved me in.
«Frank, this is Mr. Caldwell.»
Caldwell stood, shook my hand, his grip dry and calculated.
«Mr. Dalton, I appreciate you coming in. I think we can resolve this in a way that spares everyone the unpleasantness of a trial.»
I sat.
«You mean in a way that spares Ethan.»
His smile didn’t flinch.
«He’s prepared to admit to mishandling the bottle carelessness, not malice. In exchange, reduced charges. No attempted murder.»
«He’d serve some time, but not much. And the notebook,» I asked.
«An exercise in paranoia,» Caldwell said smoothly.
«Our position is that it’s fiction scribbles nothing more.»
I looked at Reyes. He didn’t say a word, but his jaw tightened. I leaned back.
«Do you know what it’s like to read your initials next to a lethal dose, Mr. Caldwell? To see that written by the kid you taught to fish, the one you drove across the state so he could try out for his first baseball team.»
For the first time, Caldwell’s gaze dropped.
«We’re talking about avoiding a public spectacle, Mr. Dalton.»
I let the silence stretch. The ticking wall clock felt louder. Finally, I said,
«I’ll think about it.»
And I walked out. In the hallway, Reyes caught up.
«You don’t have to decide today, but Frank, if you go for trial, we’ve got enough to make it stick. The DA’s ready to file the full charges.»
«What would you do,» I asked.
Reyes sighed.
«I don’t have skin in your game, but if it were me, I’d make sure the next person he hands a drink to doesn’t end up in the ground.»
That night, my phone rang. It was Robert Carson. His voice was still weak, but steady.
«Frank, I heard about the deal they’re offering him. Word travels fast. You can’t take it.»
«Robert, no.»
«Listen to me. If you do, he’ll think he can come back from anything. Next time, it won’t be whiskey.»
«It’ll be something no one catches in time. Maybe it’ll be you. Maybe it’ll be someone else he’s decided doesn’t deserve to be here.»
I closed my eyes. The truth in his voice was like gravel, rough, but solid. The next morning, I drove to Gary’s place.
He was in his workshop, tinkering with a busted outboard motor.
«Frank,» he said, «you look like a man deciding whether to pull a trigger.»
«Something like that.»
We sat on overturned buckets, the smell of oil thick in the air. I told him about the plea deal. He wiped his hands on a rag.
«You already know what you’re going to do. You just want me to make you feel better about it.»
«Maybe.»
Gary tossed the rag onto the workbench.
«Frank, a man who keeps dosage notes, isn’t careless. He’s committed. You go easy now.»
«You might as well hand him the pen and paper for his next list.»
That afternoon, I drove past Ethan’s house. The blinds were shut, the driveway empty. I thought about the garage, the one where he’d fixed up an old Ford when he was 16, grease on his hands, a grin on his face when the engine finally turned over.
Back then, I thought it meant he could build something lasting. Now I wondered if it was just the first sign he could take things apart. At home, I opened the fireproof box again.
The cards were all there. Robert’s name, the lab results, the notebook page with F.D. I laid them out like a hand of bad poker.
Then I imagined shoving them back in and locking the box away, pretending they didn’t matter. But the truth was, they mattered more than anything. The decision came like a door clicking shut.
I called Reyes.
«Tell the D.A. I’ll testify. Full charges.»
He didn’t say good man or you’re doing the right thing. He just said,
«understood.»
And that was enough. Three days later, the hearing was set. Pre-trial motions, evidence lists, witness prep.
Caldwell filed objections to half of it, but the judge overruled most. When they brought Ethan into the courtroom for the first time, he scanned the room and found me. His eyes didn’t soften.
If anything, they sharpened like I’d just made his list again. I held his gaze, because maybe I had. They call it a courtroom, but to me it felt like a minefield.
Every word, every glance could blow up in your face. I’d walked in thinking the truth would stand on its own. Then I saw the way Ethan’s lawyer was smiling at me like he already knew where I was goingto step and how hard I was going to fall.
The day of the evidentiary hearing, the benches were half full, but the air felt heavier than a packed church in August. I sat behind Reyes and the D.A., my hands folded in my lap, pretending they weren’t sweating. Ethan came in wearing county orange wrists cuffed.
He didn’t look at me at first. Then he did just long enough to let the corners of his mouth twitch, not into a smile, but into something colder. I reminded myself why I was here.