MrBallen

But as soon as she got into bed, she heard a phone ring on the other side of the house.

Dorothy groaned and took her wine with her as she shuffled down the hallway to the kitchen to answer the call.

And when she answered it, she heard her friend's voice, a woman named Patricia Newman.

So Patricia was about half Dorothy's age, and the two of them had been introduced by a mutual friend three years earlier.

Patricia had started out as more of a caretaker for Dorothy.

since Patricia had experience working with the elderly.

But they'd gotten along really well and became quite close to the point where they had sort of a mother-daughter type of relationship.

And since Patricia only lived about 10 minutes away, Dorothy did depend on her pretty much daily for things like supervising her medication and driving her to appointments.

In many ways, you know, Patricia was like the one person outside of the hired help that she did spend a lot of time with.

And so that's actually why Patricia was calling now.

She wanted to know if Dorothy still needed a ride to the pharmacy the following day.

And Dorothy said that she did and said thank you.

And then the two talked for a bit longer before ultimately saying goodnight.

After that, Dorothy hung up the phone and then poured herself a bit more wine.

And then she just kind of stood in the kitchen for a bit, listening to the crickets outside.

And then when she was about to finally leave and go back to bed, she heard something.

It was the sound of a car making their way slowly up her long driveway.

The following morning, a little after 1pm, the friend, Patricia Newman, pulled up outside of Dorothy's house and threw her car into park.

Patricia had called Dorothy around 9am that morning to tell her she was going to be late getting her, but Dorothy hadn't answered.

Patricia had tried calling a few more times, but Dorothy never answered, which ultimately made Patricia pretty nervous.