Sarah Blackwood traced her fingers over the family portraits lining the mahogany-paneled hallway. First went little Tommy, found frozen in the greenhouse despite the summer heat. Then Mother, discovered at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck – though Sarah couldn't remember those stairs ever creaking before. Father lasted longer, until the hunting accident that everyone called suspicious but couldn't prove otherwise.
At seventeen, she was the last Blackwood standing.
Mr. Peterson, their family lawyer since before her birth, had been a constant presence through each tragedy. He arranged the funerals, managed the estate, and became her legal guardian. His cold efficiency in handling their affairs had been a comfort, until she found the old photograph while cleaning out Mother's dresser.
It showed a younger Peterson at a garden party, his eyes fixed on her mother with an intensity that made Sarah's skin crawl. In every frame, he lurked in the background, watching. Mother's diary entries from that time revealed his persistent advances, all rebuffed, followed by her hasty marriage to Father.
The pieces clicked together one rainy evening when she overheard Peterson in his study. "The greenhouse temperature controls were simple enough to rig," he muttered into his phone. "The stairs, trickier. But the hunting accident? My masterpiece."
Sarah's heart pounded as she listened to him detail his final plot – their upcoming wedding, planned for her eighteenth birthday. "Once she's my wife, everything falls into place," he chuckled. "Like mother, like daughter."
That night, Sarah set the table for two, uncorking a bottle of Father's favorite wine. Peterson raised his glass, smiling at her across the candlelight. "To new beginnings," he toasted.
"To justice," Sarah replied, watching him drink deeply.
As Peterson's face contorted in recognition of the bitter almond taste, Sarah leaned forward. "I found Mother's old chemistry books in the library," she whispered. "And I've had years to study every mysterious death in this house."
His glass shattered on the floor as he slumped forward. Sarah calmly dialed 911, rehearsing her story of the grief-stricken family lawyer who, consumed by guilt, took his own life at the scene of his crimes.
The portraits watched silently as she straightened Peterson's collar, arranging him like the final piece in her family's tragic tableau. In the end, he'd taught her well – sometimes the perfect crime is hiding in plain sight.