Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T DEAD
The voice belonged to Eleanor.
Mark’s older sister.
He had shown me pictures of her grave.
For six years, he brought flowers there every October.
Now she was alive inside a psychiatric institution less than thirty miles from our home.
Dr. Brooks asked the caller to identify herself.
The woman repeated her name and gave a patient number.
Before she could say more, another voice appeared in the background.
A man ordered her to drop the phone.
The call ended.
Detective Lena Ortiz arrived twenty minutes later.
She photographed my injuries, collected the stitched thread, and took possession of Diane’s purse.
Mark remained in the room under supervision.
He looked smaller every time Ortiz asked a question.
“Why did you believe Eleanor was dead?”
“My mother showed us an urn.”
“Did you see a body?”
“No.”
“Did you verify the death certificate?”
“I was nineteen.”
“You’re thirty-three now.”
Mark stared at his hands.
He had spent fourteen years accepting whatever version of reality Diane placed in front of him.
I had spent six years doing the same.
Ortiz searched Saint Catherine’s patient database.
Eleanor Grant was admitted under a court-ordered guardianship.
The guardian was Diane.
The admitting diagnosis described violent delusions, self-harm, and compulsive lying.
The evaluating psychiatrist was Dr. Samuel Vale.
The same doctor whose name appeared on the sedatives Diane kept in her purse.
Dr. Brooks requested my full medical records.
Several entries had been altered.
According to them, I had repeatedly injured my own lips during psychotic episodes.
I had never seen a psychiatrist.
Yet Dr. Vale had signed every report.
Ortiz asked Mark who the other women in the photographs were.
His father’s first wife, Anna, disappeared after filing for divorce.
His brother’s fiancée, Melissa, died in a highway accident.
His aunt Rebecca was declared incompetent after accusing Diane of financial fraud.
Eleanor threatened to expose what happened to all three.
Then she vanished.
Mark said he knew his mother had frightened them.
He claimed he never understood the extent.
I wrote on the notepad.
YOU WATCHED HER DO IT TO ME.
His eyes filled.
“I froze.”
That answer hurt more than a lie.
Because it was true.
He had not held the needle.
He had held my shoulders.
He called it freezing because that sounded less deliberate than choosing.
Ortiz obtained an emergency order to visit Eleanor.
When she opened the patient file, she found a scheduled transfer.
Eleanor was being moved that night to a facility in another state.
The authorization had been signed that morning.
By Mark.
He stared at the signature.
“I didn’t sign that.”
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Diane had practiced Mark’s signature for years.
She used it on birthday cards, insurance forms, and family checks.
Nobody questioned it because she said she was helping.
Now she was using it to make a witness disappear.
Detective Ortiz called Saint Catherine’s.
May you like
The transfer vehicle had already left.
Its destination did not exist.
