Chapter 4 - Two Mothers
The woman pulled the hood from her head.
She was shorter than Mom and at least ten years younger.
I recognized her from the institution’s website.
Her name was Lauren Pike.
She was the admissions coordinator who had signed Daniel’s preliminary placement paperwork.
“What are you doing here?”
Lauren held up both hands.
“I don’t want trouble.”
“Then why are you wearing my mother’s coat?”
“She told me to.”
From downstairs, the police continued pounding on the locked front door.
Lauren looked toward the staircase.
“She said I only needed to keep you inside for ten minutes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You helped prepare documents to institutionalize my brother.”
Her face tightened.
“I process admissions.”
“I don’t diagnose patients.”
“You accepted forged evaluations.”
“I accepted what your mother gave me.”
I raised Daniel’s tablet.
“And you entered a locked house to delay me.”
Lauren stared at the cracked screen.
Then her expression changed.
“What did he record?”
“Enough.”
She took a step backward.
A window shattered downstairs.
Police officers entered the house.
Lauren immediately began talking.
She claimed Mom had told her I was unstable.
She said she believed the coat would calm me.
The explanation was absurd.
The officers separated us.
Detective Maya Torres arrived fifteen minutes later.
She was in her forties, with tired eyes and a voice so controlled that everyone else instinctively lowered theirs.
I showed her the forged papers.
I gave her the notebook.
Then I played the kitchen recording.
Torres did not interrupt.
When the audio ended, she looked at the bruises photographed on my phone.
“Where is your mother now?”
“At the hospital.”
“And Evan Brooks?”
“He was here.”
“Officers found no one else downstairs.”
My stomach tightened.
“There’s a rear exit through the basement.”
Torres sent two officers to search the property.
Then she examined the insurance policy.
“This was issued six months ago.”
“Did your brother consent?”
“He probably never knew it existed.”
“Adults generally need to participate in medical underwriting for a policy of this size.”
I turned toward Lauren.
“You arranged it.”
“No.”
Her denial came too quickly.
Torres noticed.
“Ms. Pike, you should stop answering questions until you have an attorney.”
Lauren began to cry.
“I didn’t know they were hurting him.”
“You knew they were provoking him.”
“I thought it was part of the assessment.”
Torres leaned forward.
“Who is Evan Brooks?”
“Margaret’s boyfriend.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Lauren covered her mouth.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then she whispered a different name.
“Elias Grant.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Detective Torres entered it into her phone.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Registered nurse.”
“License suspended nineteen months ago.”
She turned the screen toward me.
The photograph showed a clean-shaven man in blue hospital scrubs.
He looked younger without the beard.
But there was no mistaking his eyes.
May you like
Evan Brooks was Elias Grant.
The nurse on duty the night my father died.
