Margaret spun around toward the dark balcony edge, her face turning pale as she heard my voice coming closer from the stone steps below.
Margaret: You... you're alive?! How are you alive?!
Elena: Did you really think I would come to your mansion without a backup plan?
Margaret: Stay away from my son! What did you do to him?!
Elena: I gave him a taste of the exact same chemical he used on my father two years ago.
Victor lay on his side, his eyes wide with horror as he stared at me. He couldn't move his arms or legs, his chest rising and falling in shallow, desperate twitches.
Victor: Elena... please...
Elena: Don't waste your breath, Victor. The antidote is in my pocket, but you aren't getting it until you speak the truth.
Margaret: Don't listen to her, Victor! The police will be here for her!
Elena: The police are already here, Margaret. Look at the driveway.
Red and blue lights suddenly flashed through the dark pine trees below, spinning wildly against the stone walls of the mansion. Sirens echoed up the mountain, growing louder with every passing second.
Margaret: You set us up!
Elena: You set yourselves up when you tried to steal my family's trust fund and murder my father for his corporate shares.
Victor: I'm... I'm sorry, Elena! It was Mother's idea!
Margaret: You coward! Shut your mouth!
Victor: She told me to change his will! She paid the hospital doctor to alter his cause of death!
I reached down and unclipped the tiny silver microphone pinned inside the torn collar of my dress, holding it close to Victor's mouth.
Elena: Say it louder, Victor. State prosecutor Davis is listening to every word on the private channel.
Victor: We altered the life insurance documents! Mother transferred thirty million dollars to an offshore bank in the Caymans!
Margaret: I will kill you myself, Victor!
Margaret lunged toward me, her fingernails aimed at my face, but I stepped aside easily. She tripped over Victor's paralyzed leg and crashed hard into the balcony railing, her expensive gold suit getting covered in shattered glass and spilled wine.
Elena: The antidote takes five minutes to work, Victor. Confess to the rest of it, or the paralysis becomes permanent.
Victor: I pushed you! I pushed you over the balcony to stop you from going to the grand jury tomorrow!