Patrick Petting was envied by all his friends. At 79 years old, he was regarded as remarkably lucky for having married a woman half his age.
Alice, the woman who held him spellbound, was beautiful — flawless skin, delicate features, and an easy charm. As far as everyone around them was concerned, she had eyes only for Patrick, and she made sure to demonstrate it at every opportunity.
Coming from a poor background, Alice would never have expected to meet a man like Patrick. But she had, and the devotion she showed him convinced him her love was real, so he married her.
The wedding was a flamboyant affair, entirely of Alice’s design, sparing no expense. It cost a great deal of money, though of course, none of it came out of her own pocket. As their marriage continued, she grew more and more frivolous with his money.
Then one day, Patrick became extremely ill and was moved to the hospital. Many of his friends came by to check on him and wish him well. Alice, however, said she was too busy to visit.
This left Patrick heartbroken. He wanted badly to see his wife, but she showed no interest in being anywhere near illness.
“I could catch something at the hospital too,” she told him over the phone from his sickbed. “I’ll be praying for you, honey.”
In truth, Alice felt relieved to be free of him for a while — she found him overwhelming. But she had also made plans to ensure that freedom would become permanent.
Later that day, she received a package from a shady contact and immediately drove to the hospital. She approached the front desk with a performance of desperation.
“I need to find my husband,” she said. “Please.”
The nurses, moved by her show of concern, pointed her toward his room. When she arrived, Patrick wasn’t there — he’d been taken for an examination. That suited Alice perfectly; she didn’t need an audience for what she planned to do.
Once she confirmed she was alone, she opened the package. Inside was a bottle of drugs. She dissolved several tablets into the glass of water sitting on his bedside table, then hurried to slip back out of the room.
As she closed the door behind her, she collided with a cleaning woman, knocking over her bucket of soapy water.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the older woman said, trying to steady herself.
“You should be,” Alice snapped. “You need to be more careful.”
The cleaner, Martha, frowned at the rudeness but let it go. As she gathered her spilled supplies to check what had survived the fall, she noticed something else on the floor: a small bottle of drugs. She recognized what it was immediately.
By the time Patrick returned from his examination, Martha was just finishing up and leaving his room. She told him she’d cleaned up while he was away.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.
Walking back into his room, Patrick noticed how clean everything looked. Then he spotted a note on his bedside table:
“I love you very much, sometimes it may seem to you that it is not true, but the fault lies with me because I don’t know how to express my feelings. The most important thing for me is that you recover quickly! Your Alice!”
The note warmed his heart, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. Before falling asleep that night, he made a quiet phone call to his lawyer.
The next day, he summoned both his wife and the hospital cleaner to his room. When they arrived, he had his lawyer present his updated will.
Alice’s eyes went wide as she read the documents — Patrick was leaving her nothing but a car. Everything else was going to Martha.
“How could you do this?” she demanded. “How is this fair?”
Patrick, entirely unbothered by her outrage, revealed what had actually happened. “When I got back to my room yesterday, there was a letter waiting for me. A lovely letter, addressed to me. Whoever wrote it wanted me to believe it was from you. But I knew immediately it wasn’t.”
He explained that Alice always made mistakes when she wrote, yet the note was written flawlessly — grammatically perfect. That alone was suspicious. But what truly gave it away was the handwriting itself, one he’d taken a few minutes to place.
He turned to Martha. “You once wrote me a note about medications my doctor wanted me to pick up. Why did you write me a letter this time?”
Martha froze, afraid she’d be blamed for overstepping. But Patrick gently urged her to speak, assuring her she wasn’t in any trouble.
She explained that she’d run into his wife right outside his room and later found a drug bottle on the floor nearby. Concerned, she’d asked a doctor about it and learned the medication was dangerous. So she went back into his room, poured out the water sitting by his bed, and replaced it with a fresh, sealed bottle instead.
She’d written the note simply hoping it would lift his spirits and help him recover faster.
Patrick turned back to Alice, whose face had gone pale with the realization that her plan had completely unraveled.
“Do you know why I’m leaving you nothing but a car?” he asked her. “So you can use it to get as far away from me as possible — and never come back. Otherwise, I’ll be telling the police exactly what you tried to do.”
Alice took the warning seriously. By the time Patrick was released from the hospital, she had already packed her things and disappeared.
