Page 117 of The Light to My Darkness (The Light to My Darkness 1)

"Soon," I said. This time it didn't feel like a lie. When I was in my coma, I swore I knew she was beside me. I couldn't remember anything specific, but I just knew. And she

'd know I was there today. She'd know that she couldn't give up. She'd hear my plea.

I placed Scarlett down when I heard a knock on the door. "Go upstairs and get ready for bed, pumpkin," I said and ruffled her hair. "I'll be up to read you a bedtime story in a minute."

"Can we watch a movie instead?"

I smiled down at her. She usually fell asleep with her head on my lap when we watched movies. I understood that she didn't want to be alone tonight. "Of course. Go pick one out. I'll be there in a minute."

She walked away. Not her usual skip. No giggle. Don't change. Please don't let today hurt you. I needed to stay strong for her. Despite what I had said to Penny, I would never. Ever. Forget that my first job in life was as a father.

I turned around and opened the door.

"Mr. Hunter," Porter said. "I went through the footage from the past two days. There was nothing there. She didn't do it."

Any remaining doubt I had dissipated. "Then watch the past several weeks. If she didn't do it, that means someone poisoned her."

"I already watched a few days back. No one's come in or out of the house." He stepped forward and dropped his voice. "Could it have been someone at the wedding?"

"No."

"Or Ellen?"

I shook my head. I was done doubting my gut. "Ellen didn't do it. It isn't someone from the family. Keep watching the tapes. It has to be something you missed. During the time in between scans of the house."

He nodded. "How far back?"

"Until you find something."

"I'll call you when I've found it." He closed the front door and I heard the familiar lock. Could someone really have gotten into our house? How long did it take to go from the entrance of the apartment, up the elevator, and perform a successful lock-pick? I ran my fingers through my hair. I had to be missing something.

My phone buzzed. At first I thought it was Porter already. I eagerly answered the call.

"James," Matt said. "How are you holding up?"

"Not great." I looked in the other room at my daughter playing with the remote control. She had turned on the same Harry Potter movie that had scared her the other night. I was about to go stop her when Matt continued.

"Daphne called me. She told me about the poison. I agree with her, man. Penny was happy."

I closed my eyes. For some reason, I needed to hear that from him. If he had been hitting on her, that meant she had turned him down. If she thought I was cheating on her, would she have? It just further validated what Daphne had said. Penny didn't even suspect anything until her conversation with Rob. "Where were you today?" Most of the day was a blur, but I didn't remember seeing him at the hospital.

"Rob was having me talk to an investigator. Look, I know you're probably exhausted. But I had a thought. Well, the investigator had a thought. I can't take the credit. What if her first OB-GYN, the retired one, didn't tell you that she had a heart murmur because it really did disappear after Scarlett was born? Apparently it usually does after a baby is delivered."

"But it didn't. It's just gotten worse."

"No, not necessarily," he said. "No one knows if she had one between her pregnancies. It may have actually gone away. What I'm saying is, what if someone's been poisoning her for a while? What if her heart condition is caused by it too?"

A chill ran down my spine.

"Yeah, but who, Matt? No one comes in or out of my apartment without my security alerting me."

A knock on the door made me jump.

I answered it and Matt was standing there.

I slowly lowered my phone from my ear.

"Not necessarily. I just snuck by them," Matt said. "Whoever did it must have hacked into the webcam of one of their computers. He must have watched them not watching the surveillance footage. Well, technically, he probably saw that they were just glancing at it every five minutes."

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