Chapter 10 - THE DOCTOR’S LAST PATIENT
Dr. Samuel Price contacted Mara from a motel near the Canadian border.
He wanted immunity.
The prosecutor refused.
He lowered his demand to witness protection.
Investigators agreed to discuss it only after he surrendered.
Price sent a video as proof of what he knew.
He sat inside a dark room.
His hands trembled.
“Richard Sterling ordered the psychiatric transfer.”
“He also ordered me to alter Sophie Ward’s blood sample.”
“He believed Elena did not know he was the child’s biological father.”
Price admitted performing the first paternity test when Sophie was three months old.
Richard paid him to seal the result.
Years later, when Richard created the biological-child trust, Price warned him Sophie might eventually make a claim.
Richard answered:
“She will never know.”
Price kept a copy.
It became insurance.
When Sophie entered the hospital, Richard demanded a new sample so he could replace the old records with a false exclusion result.
Price took the blood.
He did not destroy it.
He placed it in a secure laboratory.
Then Richard sent someone to kill him.
The video shifted.
A hotel door moved behind Price.
His face changed.
He reached toward the camera.
The recording ended.
Canadian police found the motel room empty.
Blood marked the carpet.
Price’s phone remained on the table.
His car was gone.
Mara traced the vehicle crossing back into our state.
Richard was in custody.
Chief Stone was in custody.
Vivian remained under house arrest.
Someone else was cleaning up the conspiracy.
The answer came from Sterling Development’s board.
Richard’s older brother, William Sterling, controlled the company while Richard awaited trial.
William had remained silent throughout the school scandal.
He issued statements about accountability.
He promised independent reforms.
He visited Sophie in the hospital once, but security turned him away.
Now financial records showed William had approved every payment Richard made to Oak Creek.
The brothers were not rivals.
They were partners.
Richard handled public relationships.
William protected the money.
Sophie’s biological-child claim threatened both of them.
If Richard’s trust passed eighty million dollars to Sophie and Max, Sterling Development would lose a controlling block of shares.
William needed Sophie erased from the family record.
Mara obtained a warrant for William’s estate.
He was gone.
Inside his office, investigators found Dr. Price’s glasses.
They also found a map marking the judicial security residence where Sophie and I had stayed.
William had known our location.
Someone inside state protection had given it to him.
The investigation reached the courthouse.
My own security deputy, Alan Reese, had accessed the address file without authorization.
I had known Alan for eight years.
He walked Sophie to my chambers after school.
He attended my father’s retirement dinner.
When federal agents questioned him, he denied everything.
Then they showed him a payment from Sterling Development.
He began crying.
“My wife has cancer.”
The company offered to pay for experimental treatment.
In return, Alan provided schedules.
Addresses.
Vehicle routes.
“Did you tell them where Sophie was?” I asked.
Mara had advised me not to enter the interview.
I entered anyway.
Alan looked at me through the glass partition.
“Yes.”
“Did you know Richard tried to kidnap her from the hospital?”
“No.”
“Did you know William had a map of the safe house?”
“No.”
“You gave powerful men information and chose not to ask what they would do with it.”
His face crumpled.
“I’m sorry.”
I thought about Principal Whitmore.
Nurse Benton.
Chief Stone.
Dr. Keene in another life.
Different rooms.
The same excuse.
They needed money.
They feared consequences.
They believed the harm would stop before someone innocent paid the price.
“Sorry is where accountability starts,” I said.
“It is not where it ends.”
Alan gave investigators William’s emergency number.
The signal came from an abandoned juvenile courthouse outside the city.
The building had been closed for renovation.
It contained old holding cells.
One heat signature moved inside.
A second lay motionless.
Mara led the tactical team.
They found Dr. Price alive in a cell.
His hands were broken.
William was gone.
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On the wall, he had written a message in black paint.
A CHIEF JUDGE SHOULD KNOW EVERY CASE HAS AN APPEAL.
