What she saw froze her in place.
It wasn’t just rot.
It wasn’t just mold.
Something metallic glinted faintly in the darkness.
Richard’s footsteps faded down the marble hallway. Sophia waited until she was sure he was gone.
Then she reached inside the hole.
Her fingers touched something cold and cylindrical. She pulled it out slowly, hardly believing what she was holding.
A pipe.
But not just any pipe.
A lead pipe—completely corroded, leaking a greenish liquid that had been seeping into the walls for years.
“My God,” Sophia whispered. “It’s poisoning him.”
But when she looked further, she discovered something even worse.
The pipes hadn’t been there by accident.
They had been deliberately installed behind the master bedroom—by someone who knew the house perfectly.
Someone who wanted Richard Blackwood to die slowly… and silently.
A door slammed downstairs. Sophia jumped, quickly hiding the evidence in her bag and covering the hole as best she could.
But as she turned to leave the closet, she heard something that made her freeze.
Voices. Two people whispering in the hallway.
“How much longer will this take?” asked a woman’s voice Sophia recognized instantly.
Elena. Richard’s wife.
“Be patient, my love. Not much longer now. The doctors say his system is getting weaker every day,” replied a man Sophia didn’t know.
Sophia’s blood ran cold.
“But that new cleaning woman… she makes me nervous. She asks too many questions,” Elena continued.
“Relax. If she becomes a problem, you know what to do.”
The footsteps faded away.
Sophia had heard enough.
They weren’t just poisoning Richard.
His own wife was involved.
And now they suspected her.
The Trap Closes
Sophia slipped out of the closet as quietly as possible. She needed to leave the house immediately.
But just as she reached the stairs, the lights in the mansion went out.
Total darkness.
Then a voice cut through the silence.
“Sophia… we know you heard us.”
Slow, deliberate footsteps began climbing the stairs.
“There’s no point in running,” the man said calmly. “We know every corner of this house.”
Sophia moved blindly through the hallway, hands shaking as she searched for an escape.
Now she understood why Richard always felt worst in the mornings. He slept directly above the poison.
“Three years,” Elena’s voice echoed from below. “Three years installing those pipes little by little. Just waiting for the lead to do its job.”