Chapter 13 - THE FIRST DEATH
Daniel Rivers died nine years earlier.
Officially, he suffered a heart attack while driving home from work.
He was thirty-one.
Marissa was seven months pregnant with Sophie.
Daniel had no known heart condition.
Dr. Claudia Harris signed the death certificate because she was the emergency physician on duty.
Rosa confronted her with the photograph.
Harris sat inside Alejandro’s kitchen and stared at it.
“I hoped this would stay buried.”
Alejandro’s anger returned.
“You knew Valerie before Marissa’s accident.”
“Yes.”
“You said you only recognized her from the photograph Marissa showed you.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because Valerie threatened to expose what happened to Daniel.”
Harris explained that Daniel discovered fraud inside the insurance company where Valerie worked.
Martin used false claims to move money through trucking investments.
Daniel planned to report him.
One evening, Daniel arrived at Harris’s clinic complaining of chest pain.
A nurse gave him medication under Harris’s name.
He left before Harris examined him.
He died in his car thirty minutes later.
The medication disappeared from the record.
The nurse also disappeared.
“Who was the nurse?” Detective Brooks asked.
“Valerie.”
Alejandro stared at Harris.
“She was not a nurse.”
“No.”
“She used someone else’s identification.”
Harris discovered the fraud after Daniel died.
Martin threatened her medical career.
He also had evidence that Harris had signed incomplete insurance forms.
She remained silent.
When Marissa began investigating Sophie’s trust, Harris tried to warn her indirectly.
She never told her the entire truth.
“You allowed Marissa to walk into the same danger,” Rosa said.
Harris began crying.
“I was afraid.”
“So was she.”
Harris agreed to testify.
Daniel’s body had been cremated, but hospital storage retained a blood sample from the emergency investigation.
The sample was located in an old county archive.
Testing revealed a drug capable of causing dangerous heart rhythm changes.
The same drug appeared in records from the insurance company’s medical contractor.
Martin had approved payment for it.
Valerie had accessed Daniel’s claim file the next morning.
Sophie had lost both biological parents because they discovered the same financial scheme.
Alejandro sat alone inside Marissa’s old room.
He found a photograph of Daniel holding baby clothes against Marissa’s stomach.
He had barely known him.
He once believed Daniel’s concern about company finances was excessive.
Now he understood Daniel had been trying to expose Martin.
The conspiracy had begun before Sophie was born.
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Valerie had not entered Alejandro’s family six months earlier.
She had been circling it for nearly a decade.
