When Margaret was suffocating an unconscious patient lying in a hospital with a pillow, someone suddenly shouted beyond the door

Margaret’s hands were pressed against my face so forcefully that the silver, crescent-shaped hair clip lying on the bedside table fell to the floor and broke with a noise.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon in the room. Pale winter light came in through the window, while the monitor clicked evenly, as if it was already calmly counting my death.

I was lying in a cast placed over my entire body. My back, ribs, and left leg were broken. I could barely move even my hands. The doctors told me that I would have to endure this condition for several more weeks.

Margaret understood all this well.

That was precisely why she brought a pillow.

“Be quiet, dear,” she whispered. “In your condition, no one will believe you.”

The sharp, carnation-like smell of her perfume was soaked into the pillow’s fabric as well. My breathing was cut off, but my mind became strangely clear.

Two days earlier, Detective Mason had stood beside my bed and quietly asked me:

“Do you think Margaret will come back again?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Are you sure?”

“She will not stop until she is sure that I am dead.”

At that moment Mason only nodded. Then he showed me a small button hidden in the protector on my right thumb.

“Press it once and help will come immediately. But do not use it before then. We need her to say herself what we are trying to prove.”

Now Margaret was saying exactly the words I had been waiting for.

“That fall from the balcony should have finished everything,” she said, pressing the pillow harder against me. “You should have died that day.”

That evening came alive again in my mind.

I found messages from another woman in Ethan’s phone. I asked who she was. He smiled first, and then led me to the balcony door.

“You ask too many questions, Claire,” he told me.

“I saw her messages.”

“And?”

“And that means you are lying to me.”

I remember the cold metal of the railing against my back. I remember how Ethan’s expression changed. I remember his mother standing at the room’s door and saying nothing.

Then I felt a strong push in my back.

Now the pillow covered my face and I no longer had enough air. I counted to five. To six. To seven.

Margaret was still whispering:

“My son needs a new life. And you are standing in his way.”

Her fingers dug into the pillow. I could move only my eyes. My body burned beneath the cast, but what frightened me most was that Margaret truly believed I was completely helpless.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

I pressed the small button with my right thumb.

At first, nothing happened.

Margaret lifted the pillow slightly and laughed quietly.

“Did you think someone would save you?”

She had locked the door from the inside. The nurses’ footsteps could no longer be heard in the corridor. The monitor’s sound was slowing.

Margaret covered me with the pillow again.

This time with all her strength.

Black spots floated before my eyes. I thought, perhaps Mason had not heard. Perhaps the device had broken. Perhaps my plan had ended at the very moment I fell from the balcony.

Then the sound of heavy footsteps came from beyond the door.

Margaret’s hands froze.

Someone knocked once.

Then the lock turned as if it were being opened from outside with a special key. Margaret suddenly removed the pillow from my face and turned toward the door, but it was already too late.

The door opened.

Mason rushed into the room with two police officers. Margaret tried to escape, but both her hands were still holding the pillow.

“Mrs. Haley, hands up!” Mason shouted.

Margaret froze.

I still could not breathe, but for the first time I saw not hatred, but fear, on her face.

Mason bent beside my bed and pulled the pillow from her hand.

Then he took a small plastic device from Margaret’s bag, looked at the corridor cameras, and leaned toward me.

“Claire, do not be afraid yet,” he told me. “This is only the beginning. Now you must see whose name this woman used to bear…”

An odd silence descended in the room after Mason’s last words. Margaret stood by the door, handcuffs around her wrists, but her gaze was no longer on me. She was looking at the silver hair clip lying on the floor.

The law-enforcement officer put the pillow into an evidence bag.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he told Margaret.

“This is a misunderstanding,” Margaret answered quickly. “I was calming my daughter-in-law. She is psychologically unstable.”

Mason looked at her coldly.

“The camera does not care what you call this.”

“The camera?”

“An additional camera installed by the room’s door. Your voice was also recorded.”

The color slowly disappeared from Margaret’s face.

I was still lying on the bed and trying not to lose consciousness from the pain. The doctor put an oxygen mask on me, but Mason’s next words were still the hardest thing for me.

“Before we question your husband, there is something you must know.”

He stood beside the bed. In his hand he held a worn brown folder. On the cover, one name was written in black ink: Emily Morgan.

“Who is she?” I asked, although I was afraid of the answer.

“The woman who was married to Ethan before you.”

My heart sped up so much that the monitor immediately produced an accelerated signal.

“He told me he had never been married before me.”

“Ethan told you many things, Claire.”

Mason opened the folder and carefully took out the first photograph. It was a young woman with blonde hair and a small scar on her left cheek. Ethan stood beside her and smiled the way he did in our wedding photographs.

“Emily died three years ago,” Mason said.

The air in the room seemed to solidify.

“How?”

“Officially, she fell from a balcony. It seemed like suicide.”

Cold spread through my fingers. The balcony. Again the balcony.

“Are you saying this was not an accident?”

Mason closed the door before answering.

“We are not proving anything yet. But in Emily’s case file is the same doctor who signed the first report on your injuries. The same private clinic. The same insurance company.”

“Why did no one tell me?”

“Because by that time your husband already controlled everything. The police closed the case quickly. Your case was following the same path until you woke up.”

At that moment a loud argument was heard from the corridor. Ethan appeared with two investigators. His coat was wet, as if he had stood in the rain for a long time. In his hand he held our wedding’s silver watch and nervously wrapped the chain around his finger.

“Claire, what is happening?” he asked.

“Your mother has been arrested,” Mason replied.

Ethan looked at Margaret.

“Mother, what were you doing here?”

“I was talking to her,” Margaret said. “She is lying.”

“With a pillow?” Mason asked.

Ethan’s jaw tightened.

“My wife takes strong medication. She may have imagined it.”

Mason raised the folder before him.

“Then will you also consider this an apparition? Emily Morgan’s case?”

Ethan’s fingers released the watch chain.

For the first time I noticed that he had a small white scar on his left hand. Exactly like the one visible near Ethan’s wrist in Emily’s photograph.

“Emily died in an accident,” he said.

“And Claire?” Mason asked calmly.

Ethan looked toward me. His face still resembled that of the smiling, attentive husband whom everyone trusted.

But I saw something else in his eyes.

Fear.

Mason took a small memory card from the folder’s second pocket.

“This is a recording from the balcony camera at your house. The recording shows who was standing behind Claire.”

Ethan took a step backward.

For the first time Margaret looked at her son as if she expected an answer from him.

“Ethan, tell them this is impossible.”

Ethan said nothing.

Mason turned the card in his hand and looked at the screen installed beside my bed.

“Now both of you must hear what Margaret says in the recording on the night Claire fell from the balcony. But before I play it, know this: after this recording, one more person appears in the case…”

Mason pressed the screen’s power button. At first, only the sound of wind was heard in the room. Then I heard my own voice, frightened and hoarse.

“Who are you sending these messages to from Emily?”

Then Ethan’s voice.

“Give me the phone.”

The time of the balcony camera was visible on the video: nine eleven in the evening. I was standing toward the door, and Ethan was in front of me. A few seconds later Margaret entered the frame.

“This woman has already figured everything out,” she said.

Ethan had not noticed the camera yet.

“Be quiet, Mother.”

“Emily asked you that too. And then she became a problem.”

It seemed as if every breath in my room stopped.

Ethan’s face turned pale.

“This recording is fabricated,” he said.

“A voice examination has already been conducted,” Mason answered.

The video continued. Ethan grabbed my arm. I stepped back, but Margaret blocked my way.

“You only have to push once,” she said. “Then everything will be as it was after Emily.”

Margaret’s handcuffs struck against each other.

“No, I did not say that!”

“That is exactly what you said,” Mason replied.

In the recording Ethan looked toward me. The anger was gone from his face. Cold determination appeared there.

“Claire, you chose this yourself.”

Then a strong push.

I felt again the railing against my back and the moment of disappearing toward the ground. The screen went black.

No one could speak.

Margaret turned her head toward her son.

“You told me you would only frighten her.”

Ethan answered quietly:

“Be quiet.”

“You told me the police would close everything, as in Emily’s case.”

“Mother, be quiet!”

Mason placed the folder before him.

“Emily’s case is reopened too. You pushed her from the balcony. Then Margaret paid the doctor to write suicide in the report. In Claire’s case you repeated the same scheme.”

I closed my eyes. The truth hurt, but less than uncertainty.

“Why?” I asked barely.

Ethan looked toward me.

“Emily was going to leave. She knew about my debts and wanted a divorce. And after her, you began asking questions about her house and the insurance money.”

“Is that why you killed me?”

“Everything was not planned like that.”

“But you pushed me.”

Ethan could not answer.

Margaret lowered her eyes. From her bag the policeman took out one more item: a small black notebook in which the doctors’ names, payments made, and dates were written.

Mason opened the last page.

“It says here that after Claire’s death, the insurance money was to be transferred entirely to Ethan. It also says that this evening documents were to be taken from the safe in her house.”

Ethan suddenly looked toward the door.

“I will call my lawyer.”

“We already called him,” Mason said. “He knows that you are going to testify in court.”

Ethan took out his phone. A new message appeared on the screen. He read it, and a fear I had never seen before appeared on his face.

“Who wrote to you?” Mason asked.

Ethan put the phone on the table.

The message contained only one sentence: “Emily is alive and will tell everything tomorrow.”

Mason stared at the screen. Margaret held her breath.

And I could not understand how a woman whose death had been confirmed three years earlier could now be sending us a message.

At that moment my phone, which the nurse had placed beside the bed, rang.

It was an unknown number.

Mason forbade answering the call, but the sender’s name appeared on the screen.

Emily Morgan.

The call ended.

Then a second message arrived: “Claire, if you want to stay alive, do not tell anyone where you are hiding. Ethan still does not know that I have his real confession…”