Chapter 5: The Doctor Who Was Afraid
Ryan met Detective Ortiz outside an abandoned medical office on the edge of the city.
Dr. Hale had once practiced there before joining an exclusive private clinic.
The building had been empty for years.
Its windows were covered in dust.
The rear door stood open.
Ortiz drew her weapon before entering.
Ryan followed despite her order to remain outside.
They found Dr. Hale in an examination room.
He was alive, but blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
A metal filing cabinet had been overturned beside him.
Someone had searched the office.
Hale gripped Ryan’s sleeve.
“They took the records.”
“What records?”
“Your father’s.”
Ryan froze.
Thomas Whitmore had died fifteen years earlier after suffering what doctors called a sudden cardiac event.
He had been fifty-two years old.
Strong.
Healthy.
Gone within hours.
Hale struggled to sit upright.
“Your father suspected Evelyn and Daniel were moving money through false trusts,” he said. “He asked me to keep copies of certain documents because he no longer trusted the company attorneys.”
“Why would he give them to you?”
“He thought no one would search a doctor’s archived patient files.”
Ortiz crouched beside him.
“Did those records contain medical information?”
“Some. But mostly financial statements and letters.”
“Who attacked you?”
“I didn’t see his face. He wore a hood.”
Hale looked at Ryan.
“Your father planned to remove Evelyn from the board.”
Ryan’s mouth went dry.
“Did my mother know?”
“I think so.”
Hale closed his eyes.
“The night your father died, Evelyn called me before the ambulance arrived. She told me Thomas had collapsed after dinner.”
“That is what happened.”
“No.”
Hale opened his eyes again.
“When I reached the house, his body was cold.”
The room seemed to tilt around Ryan.
“You said he had just collapsed.”
“That was the statement Daniel prepared.”
Ryan stepped back.
For years, he had accepted the story because every adult around him repeated it.
Now he understood how easily a family could manufacture truth when everyone involved depended on the same fortune.
Hale was taken to the hospital.
Ortiz requested a new investigation into Thomas Whitmore’s death.
As Ryan left the building, Claire called.
“The board voted,” she said.
“Am I suspended?”
“For seventy-two hours, pending an evaluation.”
Ryan stared at the rain-darkened street.
His mother was moving quickly.
She wanted him isolated from the company before the police could trace the money.
“Claire, can you access the server connected to the nursery camera?”
“Not without authorization.”
“You have mine.”
“The board just suspended your authority.”
Ryan looked back at the broken office.
“Then do it without authorization.”
Claire was silent.
“That could end my career.”
“If we fail, my mother may take my son.”
May you like
Another pause.
Then Claire said, “Give me one hour.”
