Deputy Miller: What's in the red folder, Tyler?
Tyler: The certified audit from the Texas State Bar Association and the county probate registry.
Deputy Miller reached through the open window of the pickup truck, pulling the thick red envelope from the dash.
He broke the wax seal, opening the cream-colored parchment sheets under the midday sun.
Deputy Miller: 'Investigation into fraudulent probate transfers regarding the Estate of Thomas Sterling'...
Nora: That audit is completely illegal! Richard filed the original will eighteen months ago!
Tyler: Richard filed a forged will that you paid him one hundred thousand dollars to create, Nora.
Nora: Thomas signed that document in front of two independent witnesses in the hospital!
Tyler: The medical records prove my father was in a medically induced coma on the date of that signature.
Sarah: Tyler... My contractions are starting again... It feels like a tight band across my stomach.
Tyler: Miller, call the ambulance out here right now! She's having preterm labor!
Deputy Miller: Dispatch, this is Unit Four, I need an emergency medical response to the Sterling ranch immediately, code three.
Tyler knelt beside the tailgate, taking Sarah's trembling hands into his own and kissing her cold knuckles.
Tyler: Deep breaths, baby. Just look at me. The paramedics are coming from the highway.
Sarah: She had a knife on the shelf, Tyler... She told me if I made noise when your truck pulled up, she would finish it herself.
Tyler: You heard that, Miller? Did you hear what she threatened?
Deputy Miller: I heard it, Tyler. And the crime scene unit is already en route to bag that hunting knife.
Nora: That knife belongs to the ranch hands for cutting hay bales! It's been in that shed for five years!
Tyler: My father's initials are carved into the bone handle, Nora. That was his personal hunting knife from his bedroom dresser.
Nora: I moved it out there because Sarah said she didn't want weapons inside the main house!
Sarah: I never saw that knife in my life until she pointed it at my face this morning!
Tyler: Why did you take the knife out of the house today, Nora?
Nora: I don't have to answer your questions! You're not a police officer!
Tyler: You took the knife because you knew the probate court was unsealing my father's real testament at two o'clock today.
Nora's jaw dropped open, her breath wheezing out of her lungs in a dry, rattling hiss.
Nora: The real testament was burned in the fireplace after the funeral!
The entire dirt yard went dead silent, the only sound being the distant rumble of an approaching siren on the county road.
Deputy Miller stopped reading the papers, lifting his head to stare at Nora with stone-cold disgust.
Deputy Miller: Did you just admit to destroying a legal testamentary instrument, Mrs. Vance?
Nora: I... I didn't say that! You twisted my words!
Tyler: You burned a copy, Nora. My father's personal banker in Dallas held the original irrevocable deed in a private vault.
Nora: Thomas told me he didn't have any private vaults in Dallas!
Tyler: My father didn't trust you, Nora. He knew you were poisoning his evening tea with sleeping powders for six months before he died.
Nora backed up against the cruiser's rear tire, her wrinkled face turning the color of wet ashes.
Nora: Poisoning his tea?! That was herbal chamomile prescribed by his holistic wellness clinic!
Tyler: The medical examiner exhumed his tissue samples three days ago, Nora. They found lethal levels of digitalis compound.
Sarah gasped from the tailgate, clutching her swollen belly as a fresh wave of tears broke across her cheeks.
Sarah: You killed his father... You murdered Thomas in his own bed!
Nora: He was seventy-four years old! His heart was failing! Everyone in the county knew his heart was weak!
Tyler: His heart failed because you gave him four times the maximum clinical dose of heart medication every night!
The wail of the ambulance siren cut through the trees, growing louder as the white and red emergency vehicle rounded the pasture bend.