As Coralina went down into the kitchen, the twins tiptoed out of their room and strategically hid behind the great dining room screen, from where they could spy without being seen.
There they saw Patricia, furious, stepping on the marble floor.
“Mom, that bloody school doesn’t die! Your supposed infallible poison is useless!
Hidden in the shadows, the twins covered their mouths, petrified by the terror of confirming their worst suspicions.
“Patience, my girl, don’t raise your voice,” Coralina replied, beating the chocolate mixture calmly. Today I’ll put a special dose on this cake. And in the evening, with dinner, we give him the shot of grace. It’ll be his last meal. When you no longer breathe, we will cry a lot and then we go for the other, and so all of Mark’s money will be just for you.
The children ran back to the bedroom, their hearts beating them unroutably in the throat.
“They’re going to really kill us, they’re murdering us in our own house,” Cael sobbed, on the verge of a panic attack.
“We have to tell Dad right now,” Cael said.
“He won’t believe us!” Cayo stopped him, holding him by the shoulders. He loves them, he’s slurred with Patricia. They are experts in pretending. We need concrete evidence. You have to use your poison against you, but without you really killing us.
Cayo’s eyes suddenly lit up as he recalled a crucial detail. Coralina was addicted to a few drops to sleep; an extremely strong prescription soothing man who kept in her bag along with her cosmetics.
That night, when the women were distracted in the room cheering animatedly with Marcos, the twins sneaked into Coralina’s bedroom. They stirred the drawers until they found, at the bottom of the brown bag, the thick glass jar with the poison. On one side, in the bureau, rested the jar of his mighty painkiller.
With trembling but firm hands, they emptied the liquids in temporary containers, washed both jars perfectly and exchanged them. The deadly poison, the proof of its evil, was hidden in Coralina’s personal medicine jar. The harmless painkiller — but powerful enough to knock anyone out — was left in the jar that the women believed to be the killer poison.
“If everything goes as planned, today we’re just going to sleep a lot,” Cael whispered, clenching his fists.
