Chapter 5 - Caroline’s Last Doctor
Dr. Nathan Brooks had retired two years earlier.
Richard found him living outside Baltimore.
Brooks initially refused to meet.
Then Richard sent him a photograph of the toxicology report.
Brooks called within five minutes.
They met in a quiet diner.
Brooks looked ten years older than Richard remembered.
“You should never have been given that report.”
“Why?”
“Because I was ordered to destroy it.”
“By whom?”
Brooks stirred his coffee.
“Your father.”
Richard leaned forward.
“My father was dead when Caroline died.”
“Yes.”
Richard froze.
Brooks looked miserable.
“Edmund Hale approached me months before his accident.”
“He said Caroline was becoming paranoid.”
“He claimed she was accusing people of poisoning her.”
Richard’s anger grew.
“Was she?”
“She suspected someone was giving her medication without her knowledge.”
“What substance did you find?”
“A cardiovascular drug.”
“Dangerous?”
“In the wrong dosage, yes.”
Richard’s voice hardened.
“Could it have killed her?”
Brooks looked away.
“Combined with her existing condition, absolutely.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“I tried.”
Brooks explained that Caroline begged him to wait until she collected proof.
She feared that if Victoria knew she had been discovered, Victoria would disappear.
Then Edmund died.
Shortly afterward, Caroline’s health rapidly deteriorated.
Brooks ordered another test.
Before the results came back, Caroline died.
“What happened to the second test?”
“Missing.”
“Who had access?”
“The laboratory.”
“Hospital administration.”
“And David Mercer.”
Richard clenched his jaw.
“Why David?”
“He appeared with medical power-of-attorney documents.”
Richard stood so quickly the table shook.
“Caroline never gave David medical power of attorney.”
Brooks looked at him.
“That is what I suspected.”
Richard called his investigator, Lena Ortiz.
“Find every document David Mercer filed during Caroline’s final six months.”
When Richard returned home, Detective Samuel Grant was waiting.
Grant had reviewed the staircase footage.
Victoria was formally under investigation.
But she had made a counterclaim.
“She says you threatened her.”
“Of course she does.”
“She also claims you manipulated the video.”
Richard laughed.
Grant did not.
“Mr. Hale, Victoria arrived this morning with two attorneys and a psychiatrist.”
Richard frowned.
“A psychiatrist?”
“She claims she has spent months documenting what she describes as increasingly unstable behavior from you.”
Richard thought of the medication.
The grief conversations.
Victoria repeatedly telling him he needed help.
“She manufactured it.”
“Maybe.”
Grant’s tone was neutral.
“But she has emails.”
“What emails?”
Messages from Richard’s account.
Angry statements.
Threats.
Descriptions of hallucinations.
Richard stared at him.
“I never wrote those.”
Grant nodded.
“That’s going to matter.”
Richard called Alan.
Within an hour, Alan confirmed several messages had been sent while Richard was overseas.
Someone with administrative access to the home network had authenticated his account.
Victoria had known his passwords.
But so had one other person.
David Mercer.
That evening Lena called.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“Caroline’s supposed medical power of attorney.”
“Is it real?”
“The signature looks authentic.”
Richard felt a flash of uncertainty.
Then Lena continued.
“But the witness is dead.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Richard went silent.
“The document was signed six months after Edmund Hale died.”
Richard stared across the dark study.
A forged document.
A poisoned wife.
A child pushed toward a staircase.
And the same names appearing again and again.
“Richard,” Lena said carefully.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“The notary who certified the document disappeared four years ago.”
“Disappeared?”
“No address.”
“No employment record.”
“Nothing.”
Richard looked through the window toward the guesthouse where Maya slept.
“Find him.”
Lena hesitated.
“I already did.”
Richard straightened.
“Where is he?”
“He’s not missing.”
“Then where?”
“He changed his name.”
Richard waited.
Lena spoke.
May you like
“He’s working for Victoria Langley.”
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