Chapter 7 - The Doctor Who Looked Twice
Dr. Helen Crowe asked everyone except Samuel and Hunter to leave the office.
I refused to sit.
Hunter stood by the windows with the calm expression of a concerned husband.
He had changed masks again.
No anger.
No arrogance.
Only sorrow.
“She has barely slept,” he told Dr. Crowe. “She’s been hearing voices and accusing people of impossible things.”
“I heard your voice on a phone call.”
Hunter lowered his eyes.
“She believes ordinary conversations are coded threats.”
Dr. Crowe watched him carefully.
“What medication is your wife currently taking?”
Hunter answered immediately.
“Clonazepam, two milligrams nightly. Sertraline, one hundred milligrams. Quetiapine as needed.”
My mouth went dry.
“I don’t take any of those.”
Hunter looked at me with rehearsed patience.
“Kylie.”
“I don’t.”
Dr. Crowe opened the electronic file on her tablet.
“These prescriptions were filled under your name.”
“Where?”
She read the pharmacy address.
It was in New Jersey.
I had never been there.
Hunter sighed.
“She often sends staff.”
“Which staff member?” Dr. Crowe asked.
He hesitated.
“Her assistant.”
“I don’t have a personal assistant.”
Hunter’s eyes shifted.
Small mistake.
Dr. Crowe noticed.
She turned the tablet toward me.
“Is this your date of birth?”
“Yes.”
“Is this your Social Security number?”
“The last four digits are wrong.”
Hunter stepped forward.
“That must be a clerical error.”
Dr. Crowe looked at him.
“Three digits are reversed.”
“She makes mistakes under stress.”
“The number came from the court petition, not from Mrs. Vale.”
Hunter stopped speaking.
Dr. Crowe scrolled further.
“Your listed psychiatrist is Marcus Bell.”
Samuel and I exchanged a glance.
Dr. Crowe continued.
“Dr. Bell is prohibited from practicing medicine.”
Hunter’s face remained composed.
“I wasn’t aware.”
“Yet he signed an evaluation dated two weeks ago.”
“I relied on counsel.”
“Which counsel?”
Hunter did not answer.
Dr. Crowe looked at me.
“Have you ever met Dr. Bell?”
“Tonight. He entered my home wearing my dead father’s ring.”
Hunter gave a quiet, pained laugh.
“You see what I mean?”
Dr. Crowe did not react.
“Did anyone else see him?”
“Twelve dinner guests, our security staff, and Samuel.”
Samuel nodded.
“There is surveillance footage.”
Hunter’s expression tightened.
Dr. Crowe closed the tablet.
“I will not authorize transport.”
Hunter’s concern disappeared.
“You are required to follow the court order.”
“I am required to perform an independent assessment.”
“The order says—”
“The order contains incorrect identifying information, medication records linked to a suspended physician, and a diagnosis unsupported by a direct examination.”
Hunter stepped closer.
“You don’t understand who you’re dealing with.”
Dr. Crowe met his eyes.
“That sentence alone concerns me more than anything your wife has said.”
For one glorious second, Hunter had no response.
Then his phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
The forty-eight-million-dollar transfer had been permanently frozen.
Dr. Crowe gathered her things.
“I recommend Mrs. Vale remain with someone she trusts tonight.”
“She remains here,” Hunter said.
I looked around the penthouse.
My home.
My mother’s jewelry.
My father’s ring.
My husband’s lies.
“No,” I said. “He does.”
Hunter laughed.
“You cannot remove me from my own residence.”
Samuel opened his folder.
“The deed is held by the Kylie Rhodes Residential Trust. The trust permits immediate removal of any occupant credibly accused of financial abuse against the beneficiary.”
Hunter stared at him.
“You planned this.”
“No,” Samuel said. “Arthur did.”
The security guard entered.
“Mr. Vale, you need to leave.”
Hunter looked at me.
His eyes were dark and cold.
“If I walk out that door, Kylie, every secret about your family walks out with me.”
I held his gaze.
“Then start talking.”
He smiled.
Not kindly.
“Ask Samuel why your father changed the trust eleven days before Daniel’s accident.”
I turned toward Samuel.
His face had gone still.
Hunter saw my reaction and pressed harder.
“Ask him who was driving Daniel’s car.”
Samuel said nothing.
“Samuel?”
Hunter walked toward the elevator.
The guard followed.
Before the doors closed, Hunter looked at me one last time.
“Your brother didn’t die alone.”
The elevator descended.
I turned toward Samuel.
“What did he mean?”
Samuel removed his glasses.
For the first time in all the years I had known him, his hands were shaking.
“There was another person in Daniel’s car.”
“Who?”
He looked toward the dining room where Isabelle stood beyond the glass doors.
“Her mother.”
Isabelle heard him.
The color drained from her face.
“My mother died in a boating accident,” she whispered.
Samuel shook his head.
May you like
“No. She died in Daniel Rhodes’s car.”
👉 Kylie and Isabelle had believed their families were strangers, but the hidden connection between their dead relatives would reveal that their lives had been engineered toward the same betrayal.
