Lana didn’t flinch when Evan stepped between us. She didn’t try to hide the evidence on the table, either. She simply rolled her eyes and muttered, “Overdramatic as always, Matt.”
“Overdramatic?” Evan snapped. “We have schematics, chemicals, dispersal notes—”
“They’re not chemicals, they’re samples from Dad’s workshop.”
Her voice was icy, controlled. “Maybe if Matt visited more, he’d know what Dad kept around.”
I took a breath, forcing myself not to explode. “Lana, antimony powder doesn’t just show up in a vent system by accident.”
She smirked. “Maybe the ducts are old. Maybe you’re paranoid after the Army messed with your head.”
That hit a nerve, and she knew it. She always knew where to strike.
But I stepped closer. “Lana, why would you even want to hurt me?”
Her façade cracked for just a moment—anger, raw and ugly. “Why shouldn’t everything finally be mine? Dad left you the house. The investments. The lake property. I spent my life caring for him while you were out playing soldier.”
“That’s not fair,” I said quietly. “I sent money every month. You refused in-home nurses—Dad told me.”
“He preferred me!” she snapped. “He trusted me!”
Evan interjected, “Enough. We’re calling the police.”
But Lana lunged for the papers. Evan grabbed her wrist, firm but not violent. She shrieked, not in pain but in outrage—like someone inconvenienced, not caught.
“You don’t have proof,” she hissed. “A judge won’t believe you. You’re unstable, Matt. You always were. And Dad’s gone—he can’t defend you.”
I stared at her. In that moment, I saw the truth I’d spent years denying. Lana wasn’t impulsively angry. She was calculating. Strategic. Someone who believed the world owed her everything.
“You’ve been dosing me for days,” I said.
She shrugged. “Barely. You weren’t even getting sick fast enough.”
The coldness of that sentence chilled me more than the basement draft. I dialed 911. Lana didn’t try to stop me this time. She just sat on the workbench stool, breathing hard, fingers twitching, eyes darting between me and the schematics like she was trying to decide whether there was a way out.
When the officers arrived, she transformed instantly—tears, shaking hands, voice trembling. “My brother is hallucinating. PTSD. He thinks I’m poisoning him.”
But Evan spoke calmly, firmly. “We found the materials. She admitted motive. And Matt needs immediate medical testing.”
The officers separated us. One escorted Lana outside while another asked me questions. My legs gave out halfway through, and Evan had to steady me.
Within the hour, paramedics loaded me into an ambulance. As the doors closed, I saw Lana standing in the driveway, face twisting with something between fury and fear. For the first time, she realized she might lose.
At the hospital, bloodwork confirmed elevated levels of antimony and trace heavy metals—consistent with environmental exposure rather than a one-time ingestion. The ER doctor’s expression was grim but controlled.
“You were being dosed slowly,” he said. “If this continued another week, you could’ve gone into cardiac failure.”
Evan paced beside my bed, jaw clenched. “I knew something was off.”
Police investigators arrived the next morning with updates. They’d searched Dad’s house and found more containers, plus Lana’s handwritten schedule for dispersal through the HVAC system. She had planned the dosage increases carefully—starting minimal, then ramping up over nine days.
When they questioned Lana, she claimed it was part of “a home renovation project,” but her story collapsed when they found searches on her phone: “How long antimony takes to kill, heavy metal symptoms slow exposure, inheritance disputes poisoning charges.”
She had dug her own grave with Google. Two days later, she was formally charged with attempted murder. I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt hollow.
Family friends called, shocked, whispering condolences like someone had died. In a way, someone had—my illusion of who my sister was. Evan stayed with me the entire week, sleeping on the stiff hospital couch, bringing coffee, cracking inappropriate jokes that somehow made breathing easier. On day five, he said, “You know she would’ve succeeded if you hadn’t called me.”
I nodded. “I know.”
When I was discharged, the officers escorted me back to the house to retrieve personal items. The place felt unfamiliar now—like the walls themselves held betrayal. In the kitchen, I noticed subtle signs I’d missed: the slightly loose vent grate, the faint powder residue on the counter, the cleaning wipes tucked behind the fridge.
I should’ve seen it earlier. But who expects their sibling to methodically poison them?
In the following weeks, I worked with lawyers, investigators, and a victims’ advocate. Lana’s defense attorney pushed a narrative of “mental instability triggered by grief.” Maybe grief played a role. Maybe resentment. Maybe years of festering insecurity. But none of it justified what she planned.
At the preliminary hearing, she avoided looking at me. I wasn’t there for vengeance—I just wanted truth acknowledged. The judge denied bail. The day ended quietly. No dramatic shouting. No confessions.
Just a simple, devastating reality: I survived because I had the right training, the right friend, and the right instincts. And because her arrogance made her sloppy.
I kept Dad’s house, but I didn’t move back in. Instead, I sold it and used the money to start fresh in Colorado, closer to Evan and far from the ghosts of the past.
Some wounds heal. Others stay as warnings.
Mine did both.
