Chapter 7 - MY FIRST MOVE
Hector was arrested for assault, unlawful restraint, administering a controlled substance, and attempting to remove a patient under threat.
His lawyer arrived before the rain stopped.
By noon, the hospital entrance was crowded with reporters.
Someone had leaked the story.
Eleanor blamed me.
Hector blamed Valeria.
Daniel blamed no one because Daniel had begun answering police questions.
I stayed beside Valeria’s bed.
Her skin was still pale, but her breathing had steadied.
Dr. Cole explained that the surgery had repaired a tear caused by blunt-force impact against the broken drawer handle.
Hector had slammed her against it.
Valeria remembered everything.
She had discovered the hidden room while searching for her confiscated phone.
Inside, she found dosage logs, insurance documents, and recordings of our private conversations.
She tried to photograph them.
Hector entered through the garage door.
He grabbed her phone.
She ran.
He caught her near the refrigerator and threw her against the cabinet.
The drawer handle snapped inside her side.
Then he dragged her toward the hidden room.
“What stopped him?” I asked.
“The camera light.”
She looked at me.
“It turned red.”
Someone had activated the kitchen camera remotely.
Hector panicked and carried her into the open area, pretending she had collapsed.
“Who activated it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the messages?”
“I scheduled some.”
My heart tightened.
“How many?”
“Three. The first video, the pantry address, and the audio recording.”
“The others?”
She shook her head.
“They weren’t me.”
Someone else had helped us.
Someone who knew Hector’s system.
I called Marcus Hale.
The family attorney arrived within an hour carrying two locked briefcases.
He looked different without Hector beside him.
Older.
Ashamed.
“I should have spoken sooner,” he said.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“I know.”
“What did you do for Hector?”
Marcus placed documents on the table.
“He asked me to establish a company in Valeria’s name. He forged your signature as guardian.”
“Why?”
“To transfer the house and several investment accounts.”
“Into her name?”
“Temporarily.”
He showed me a series of planned transfers.
After thirty days, the assets would move to a trust controlled by Eleanor.
“If Valeria died before the transfer?” I asked.
Marcus’s eyes lowered.
“The life insurance policy would pay Eleanor, and the trust would retain the property.”
Valeria’s monitor beeped steadily beside us.
My daughter was worth more to them dead than alive.
Marcus opened the second briefcase.
“I copied every document.”
“Why?”
“Because Samuel Vega hired me first.”
Hector’s father.
Marcus explained that Samuel had become afraid of his own son.
Years earlier, Hector had assaulted another teenage girl who lived with the family.
The case vanished after Samuel altered hospital records and Eleanor paid the girl’s mother.
“What was her name?”
“Camille Rhodes.”
The photograph Valeria saw.
The first failure.
“Did she survive?”
Marcus hesitated.
“She disappeared.”
My hands curled around the edge of the table.
“How old was she?”
“Sixteen.”
“Who was she?”
Marcus looked at Valeria.
“Hector’s daughter.”
The room went silent except for the monitor.
Valeria stared at him.
“My sister?”
“Half sister.”
Hector had been twenty-nine when Camille’s mother, Tessa Rhodes, accused him of assault and coercive control.
Eleanor claimed Tessa was extorting the family.
Samuel arranged a private settlement.
Camille later moved into the Vega home for six months.
Then she vanished.
Hector told everyone she ran away.
Marcus slid an envelope toward me.
“Samuel gave me this shortly before he died. He said to open it if Hector ever harmed Valeria.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I told myself I needed proof.”
“You had proof.”
“I had fear.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a handwritten statement from Samuel.
He admitted falsifying my toxicology report.
He admitted helping Hector drug me.
He admitted destroying Camille’s medical evidence.
At the bottom, he wrote:
CAMILLE DID NOT RUN AWAY. ELEANOR KNOWS WHERE SHE IS.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A woman breathed softly on the other end.
“Marisol?”
“Who is this?”
“You don’t know me.”
“Are you Camille?”
Silence.
Then a shaky inhale.
“I’m the person who turned on the camera.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“Where are you?”
“Close enough to see the reporters outside.”
I ran to the window.
Across the street, beneath a black umbrella, a woman stood watching the hospital.
She raised one hand.
Before I could speak, a dark SUV pulled beside her.
The rear door opened.
May you like
Someone dragged her inside.
The umbrella fell into the street.
