Chapter 7 - Rachel Thought I Was Next
I stopped breathing for a second.
“My death?”
Thomas nodded.
“Rachel came to me three days before the crash.”
“You said she was investigating foundation transfers.”
“She was.”
“So where do my medical records come in?”
“She believed the financial scheme had another layer.”
“What layer?”
Thomas looked toward Sarah.
“Beneficiary substitution.”
Sarah frowned.
“Explain.”
“If a designated family member became incapacitated or died, certain asset-management rights could shift.”
“To Evelyn?”
“Sometimes.”
“To Mercer?”
“Through companies he advised.”
I stared at Thomas.
“Rachel thought someone planned to kill me for financial control?”
“She never used those words.”
“What words did she use?”
Thomas swallowed.
“She said, ‘If Daniel suddenly gets sick, don’t let my mother choose his doctor.’”
My skin prickled.
Rachel had never told me.
I wanted to be angry at her.
Instead, I felt the familiar ache of losing the chance to ask why.
Sarah said, “How did she get his medical records?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she show them to you?”
“Copies.”
“What concerned her?”
“An entry for a cardiac condition Daniel doesn’t have.”
I stared at him.
“What cardiac condition?”
“Long QT syndrome.”
“I’ve never been diagnosed with that.”
“I know.”
Sarah wrote it down.
Thomas continued.
“Rachel believed someone had inserted it into a private underwriting file.”
“Why?”
“To make a sudden cardiac event look medically plausible.”
No one spoke.
I thought about the altered injector labeled with my name.
A sedative.
Possibly something more.
And a false medical record suggesting I had a heart rhythm disorder.
The idea was horrifying because it was not dramatic.
It was administrative.
Quiet.
A forged diagnosis.
A mislabeled drug.
A death that could fit paperwork already waiting in a file.
Sarah’s phone rang.
This time she answered without leaving.
“Yes.”
She listened.
“Understood.”
Then she looked at Evelyn.
“We have a fingerprint comparison.”
Evelyn straightened.
“On which item?”
“The altered injector.”
“Mine won’t be on it.”
Sarah paused.
“You’re right.”
Evelyn’s relief lasted less than a second.
Sarah turned toward Thomas.
“Yours are.”
Thomas stood abruptly.
“That’s impossible.”
I stared at him.
“You said Mercer handed you a syringe case.”
“A case. I never touched this injector.”
“You recognized the cap.”
“I told you the one I saw had a red cap.”
Sarah remained calm.
“Your right thumb and index finger are on the device labeled for Daniel.”
Thomas looked genuinely shocked.
“It was switched.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know.”
Evelyn laughed once from the hospital room.
We all turned.
She stood at the doorway.
“You finally understand, Thomas?”
Sarah moved immediately.
“I asked you to remain with the officer.”
Evelyn ignored her husband.
“They were always going to use you.”
Thomas stared at her.
“Who?”
She shook her head.
“You’re too late.”
I stepped toward her.
“Who is using him?”
Evelyn looked at me.
For the first time since Lily collapsed, there was no arrogance in her expression.
Only exhaustion.
“You think finding an injector solves this?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Then help me.”
Her eyes filled.
“You hit me.”
“You tried to silence Lily.”
“I was scared.”
“So was she.”
Evelyn looked toward the bed.
Lily had fallen asleep.
Her face softened.
Then hardened again when she saw Sarah watching.
“I will speak to Daniel alone.”
Sarah said, “No.”
“Then I say nothing.”
I didn’t trust Evelyn.
But I needed answers.
Sarah compromised by standing outside the partially open consultation-room door.
Evelyn sat opposite me.
“You want to know why Rachel had your medical records?”
“Yes.”
“Because I gave them to her.”
I stared at her.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I found the false diagnosis first.”
Everything Thomas had said shifted.
“You were helping Rachel?”
“For a time.”
“Then why are you forging her signature?”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
“Because after Rachel died, I had to survive the people she had challenged.”
“And using Lily was survival?”
Tears appeared.
Real or rehearsed, I couldn’t tell.
“I never meant for Lily to be without medication.”
“You switched her dessert.”
“Yes.”
The admission hit harder than another denial would have.
“You deliberately poisoned an eight-year-old child.”
“I gave her a trace exposure because I knew the injector was in her backpack.”
“You gambled with her life.”
“I know.”
My hands clenched beneath the table.
“Why?”
“To force the policy review.”
“What policy review?”
“The one that would expose the substituted beneficiary schedule.”
I stared at her.
“You endangered Lily to reveal fraud?”
“I was told there was no other way to trigger the audit without warning Mercer.”
“Who told you?”
Evelyn looked at the door.
Then leaned forward.
“The same man who called your phone.”
I felt the room narrow.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“Name him.”
Before she could answer, Sarah rushed back inside.
“Daniel, step away from Evelyn.”
“What happened?”
Sarah held up her phone.
The fingerprints on the altered injector had been re-run.
Thomas’s prints were real.
But there was another partial print underneath his.
A match from an old hospital employment file.
Dr. Andrew Vale.
May you like
And according to traffic-camera records, Andrew Vale had entered the hospital parking garage twenty minutes earlier.
📖 See why Dr. Andrew Vale came to Lily’s hospital after disappearing from the luncheon—and what he carried inside his coat in CHAPTER 8. 👇
