Chapter 9 - MARGARET’S LAST NIGHT
Emily’s mother had died when Emily was sixteen.
Officially, Dr. Margaret Saint Claire suffered a fatal cardiac event while attending a medical conference.
Emily remembered the phone call.
Raymond arriving at school.
Her father collapsing against the kitchen counter.
The funeral.
The silence afterward.
She had never questioned it.
Until now.
Raymond sat in the library with both hands clasped.
“Your mother had discovered financial irregularities.”
Emily felt her stomach tighten.
“Involving the Whitmores?”
“Yes.”
“Charles?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were sixteen.”
“I’m thirty-three now.”
Raymond looked ashamed.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Emily stood.
“You let me marry into their family.”
“I didn’t know Preston was targeting you.”
“You knew Charles might have been involved in Mom’s death.”
“No.”
Raymond stood too.
“I suspected he knew more than he admitted.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Emily turned away.
The baby kicked.
She pressed a hand against her stomach and breathed.
Raymond lowered his voice.
“Margaret called me the night she died.”
Emily froze.
“What did she say?”
“She had evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Fraud.”
“Illegal patient billing.”
“Kickbacks.”
“And a shell corporation tied to Charles Whitmore.”
Emily turned back.
“Where is the evidence?”
“I never found it.”
Raymond walked to a locked cabinet.
He removed an old cassette recorder.
“Your mother left me one voicemail.”
He pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Margaret’s voice emerged.
“Raymond, I was right.”
Emily covered her mouth.
She had not heard her mother’s voice in seventeen years.
“There’s more than money involved.”
“Charles knows I found the records.”
“If anything happens to me, check Saint Claire room 417.”
The recording ended.
Emily stared at Raymond.
“What is room 417?”
“It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“The old hospital wing was renovated after her death.”
Emily thought for a moment.
“Then what used to be there?”
Raymond’s expression changed.
“The records archive.”
They drove to the hospital that night with security.
Old blueprints showed room 417 had been sealed behind a newer wall.
Workers opened it.
Dust filled the abandoned space.
Inside stood one rusted cabinet.
Emily pulled the bottom drawer.
Empty.
Then Raymond noticed scratches beneath it.
They lifted the cabinet.
A metal lockbox had been hidden under the floor.
Emily opened it.
Inside was her mother’s handwriting.
And beneath the first page sat a photograph of Charles Whitmore meeting privately with a man Emily recognized immediately.
May you like
Thomas Reed.
Seventeen years earlier.
