Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered was the smell of antiseptic and cheap bleach.

I was dying in a low-funded hospice, my body eaten away by colon cancer. My son, Ethan, sat by my bed, his face a mask of sorrow. He told me he was sorry. He told me there was no money left for better treatment.

He said his girlfriend, Chloe, had taken it all.

"She cleaned out your savings, Mom," he had sobbed, his head in his hands. "All $150,000. She used it for a down payment on some luxury condo and won't give it back."

I believed him. Of course, I did. He was my son, the only thing I had left in this world. I raised him alone, a public school teacher in a small Ohio town, saving every penny from my pension and my 401(k) for him, for my retirement.

The hatred I felt for Chloe was a physical thing, a fire that burned hotter than the cancer. I imagined this girl, this materialistic monster, living in luxury while I wasted away in a room with peeling paint.

Ethan told me she was a gold digger, that she always complained about my small house and my frugal ways. It all made sense.

In my final hours, with what little strength I had left, I did one last thing. I called the police. I filed a report. I told them Chloe had stolen my life savings. I wanted to ruin her. If I was going to die in misery, she wouldn't get to live in peace.

The detective's voice on the phone was sympathetic but distant. He took down the details.

I hung up, exhausted.

Then I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me, my heart full of nothing but pure, unadulterated hate for a girl I had met only once.