Chapter 3 - THE WOMEN BEFORE ME
Detective Ortiz reopened all three deaths.
Melissa’s balcony railing had been repaired before police arrived.
Caroline’s car was destroyed before an independent inspection.
Julia’s toxicology report had disappeared from county archives.
Each investigation touched the same private legal firm.
Walker & Vale.
Caleb’s family firm.
The attorney who brought the envelope to my hospital room was Samuel Vale, Caleb’s uncle.
The firm specialized in estates, guardianships, and insurance disputes.
It also represented the private clinic where Julia died.
Dr. Reed examined my older medical records.
Several entries described anxiety, self-harm, and medication misuse.
She had never written them.
The electronic signatures belonged to physicians who did not remember treating me.
Someone had been constructing a psychiatric history in my name for years.
A history that would support Caleb’s suicide story.
Anna showed Ortiz text messages I supposedly sent her.
They said I wanted no contact.
I had never written them.
Caleb had used my phone to isolate me.
He did not merely hurt women.
He erased every person who might believe them.
Ortiz obtained a temporary protective order.
Hospital security restricted visitors.
Nurse Priya moved me to a room under another name.
That night, I woke to the sound of my IV pump changing.
A masked orderly stood beside the bed.
His badge looked real.
His shoes did not.
Hospital staff wore white soles.
His were polished black leather.
Caleb’s preferred brand.
I reached for the call button.
The orderly caught my wrist.
“Be quiet.”
I recognized Samuel Vale’s voice.
He injected something into the IV port.
Priya entered before he finished.
She struck him with the metal chart holder.
Samuel ran.
Security found his coat near the stairwell but not him.
Dr. Reed stopped the infusion and sent my blood to toxicology.
The substance was a strong sedative combined with a drug that could cause respiratory failure.
The dose might have killed me in my sleep.
Samuel had entered a protected hospital room using legitimate credentials.
Someone inside administration helped him.
Ortiz searched the visitor logs.
The access badge belonged to Dr. Marcus Hale, chief medical officer.
Hale sat on the board of Walker & Vale’s charitable foundation.
The network reached inside the hospital.
Then the encrypted flash drive revealed a fourth folder.
REBECCA — FINAL PHASE.
Inside was a timeline of my injuries.
The staircase fall was not the beginning.
Caleb had arranged a minor car accident, a medication reaction, and an earlier fall in the bathroom.
Each event tested how easily he could control the medical record.
The final document scheduled my death for Friday.
Three days away.
The method was listed as post-surgical embolism.
No visible violence.
No suspicious overdose.
A natural hospital complication.
At the bottom was a payment authorization.
Recipient: Dr. Evelyn Reed.
Dr. Reed stared at her own name.
“I have never seen this.”
May you like
Her signature had been forged.
Someone planned to frame the physician protecting me.
