Chapter 4 - The Price of a Diagnosis
For several seconds, nobody in Naomi’s office moved.
On the screen, Connor leaned toward Dr. Mercer.
“Severe enough to activate the trust clause.”
Mercer glanced at the envelope.
Brenda spoke.
“And enough to make the board believe she can’t manage company decisions.”
Mercer shook his head.
“You’re asking me to risk my license.”
Elaine’s voice came from somewhere behind the camera.
“No.”
She stepped into frame.
“We’re asking what your license is worth.”
The recording ended.
Naomi paused the video.
I stared at Elaine’s face.
She looked completely different from the woman who served pumpkin pie while pretending not to understand interest rates.
“How did this recording get on the flash drive?”
I asked.
“That’s what we need to determine.”
The examiner opened the file properties.
“The video was copied from a device registered to an Apex employee.”
“Who?”
He looked at me.
“Marcus Hill.”
I knew Marcus.
He was a senior systems analyst.
Quiet.
Brilliant.
The kind of man who noticed everything and volunteered nothing.
Connor fired him three weeks earlier.
The reason listed in the company memo was misconduct.
Naomi found him before noon.
Marcus arrived with a bruise beneath his left eye.
He looked at me and immediately apologized.
“I should have contacted you sooner.”
“What happened?”
He sat down.
“Connor caught me copying server logs.”
“Did he hit you?”
Marcus hesitated.
“No.”
The answer came too slowly.
“Who did?”
He looked toward Naomi.
“I don’t know his name.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“Start at the beginning.”
Marcus explained that Apex’s cybersecurity alerts had begun flagging unusual administrator activity eleven months earlier.
He traced some of it to Connor.
Then Brenda.
Then an external login connected to Elaine’s home.
When Marcus confronted Connor privately, Connor claimed it was part of a confidential restructuring.
Marcus did not believe him.
So he began making backups.
“That flash drive?”
“One of them.”
My heart skipped.
“One?”
Marcus nodded.
“There are four.”
Naomi’s expression sharpened.
“Where are the others?”
“I hid them.”
“Why put one beneath Claire’s chair?”
Marcus looked at me.
“Because I heard what they were planning.”
“The humiliation?”
“Not just the humiliation.”
He swallowed.
“Connor wanted you angry.”
I frowned.
Marcus continued.
“They wanted you to react violently in front of the investors.”
My stomach twisted.
The bowl.
The laughter.
Brenda’s toast.
It had all been bait.
“If you threw something, hit Brenda, screamed at Connor, anything like that, they were going to use the restaurant witnesses as evidence that you were unstable.”
I remembered Connor’s expression when I raised my water.
“To consequences.”
He had expected rage.
Instead, I had given him silence.
Marcus rubbed his hands together.
“They had a process server waiting outside.”
“For what?”
Naomi asked.
“A petition for emergency guardianship.”
My blood turned cold.
“They planned to serve her at dinner?”
Marcus nodded.
“After she had a breakdown.”
I closed my eyes.
There had never been a family dinner.
It was a stage.
But Marcus was not finished.
“The petition was already signed by a physician.”
Naomi’s gaze hardened.
“Mercer?”
“No.”
Marcus looked directly at me.
“That’s why I panicked.”
He reached into his jacket.
From an inside pocket, he removed a folded photocopy.
“The doctor who signed it wasn’t Stephen Mercer.”
He unfolded the page.
I recognized the signature before I saw the printed name.
Because I had seen it on dozens of Christmas cards.
Dr. Allison Ward.
May you like
Connor’s older sister.
The woman who had hugged me at my father’s funeral and promised I would always be family.
