Chapter 4 - A Doctor She Never Met
Mom had never heard of Dr. Samuel Keene.
Maya had never seen him.
Neither had I.
Yet his report described two detailed examinations supposedly conducted inside my home.
The dates matched days I had been traveling for work.
“That man was never there.”
Mom was sitting upright in her hospital bed now.
Fluids had already brought more color into her face.
“I would remember a doctor.”
Detective Bennett wrote everything down.
“What about video from those dates?”
I searched the archive.
The cameras showed Chloe moving through the house.
Maya working.
Mom resting.
No doctor.
But there were gaps.
Thirty-seven minutes missing on the first date.
Forty-two minutes missing on the second.
Someone had deliberately deleted those intervals.
Maya leaned toward me.
“There’s another camera.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
“The old nursery.”
“We don’t have a camera there.”
“You don’t.”
She lowered her voice.
“I installed one.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because I knew Chloe was hurting your mother, but I needed proof that she couldn’t erase.”
Maya explained that six weeks earlier she had purchased a small battery-powered camera and hidden it inside an old clock on a shelf.
It did not connect to our home security system.
The recordings were stored on a memory card.
“Where’s the clock?”
Her expression darkened.
“Still in the house.”
I called Bennett.
She told me not to return alone.
Two officers accompanied me.
The house felt different when I walked inside.
For years, it had been home.
Now every room looked like a crime scene.
The clock was still there.
We removed the memory card.
I inserted it into my laptop.
There were hours of recordings.
We jumped to the first supposed medical examination.
No Dr. Keene arrived.
Chloe did.
Caleb did.
For thirty minutes they sat at a desk filling out forms.
Then Caleb removed a small stamp from his briefcase.
Chloe laughed.
“Samuel is going to owe you for this.”
Caleb answered.
“He owes me already.”
The second date was worse.
Mom appeared in the nursery doorway.
She had heard voices.
Chloe rushed toward her.
“What are you doing out of your room?”
“This is my son’s house.”
“It’s my house too.”
“No, Chloe.”
My mother’s voice was weak but steady.
“It isn’t.”
Chloe froze.
Mom continued.
“Ethan never told you, did he?”
I leaned closer to the screen.
Chloe asked the same question I was now thinking.
“Told me what?”
Mom looked directly at her.
“The house belongs to the Whitmore family trust.”
Chloe’s face transformed.
Then my mother added.
“And I am still the trustee.”
Caleb slowly closed the folder.
“Mrs. Whitmore, that changes things.”
The recording ended.
But I finally understood why Friday mattered.
If Chloe could have my mother declared incompetent, the successor trustee named in our family documents would take control.
I just didn’t know who that successor was.
Mom did.
She looked at me from the hospital bed.
May you like
“Your wife.”
*
