Chapter 6 - The Woman Before Me
The woman’s name was Amelia Ross.
She had been engaged to Marcus seven years earlier.
His family told friends that Amelia left him for another man.
Her social media accounts stopped updating the week before their wedding.
No missing-person report had ever been filed.
Amelia’s parents received emails claiming she wanted no contact.
The messages came from an address created inside Lionel Crane’s office.
Police traced Amelia to a rehabilitation facility in northern Maine.
She was alive.
She had been admitted under a court order stating that she suffered from delusions and violent behavior.
The petition had been signed by Marcus.
Dr. Wallace provided the medical recommendation.
Judge Vance approved the emergency order.
Amelia had spent seven years inside an institution.
Her parents believed she was living overseas.
Owen traveled to Maine with federal investigators.
Amelia was released after an independent evaluation found no evidence of psychosis.
She came to the hospital three days later.
She was thirty-four.
Her hands shook when she saw Hope.
Marcus had also talked to her about children.
He said marriage was meaningless without an heir.
When Amelia learned he had forged documents using her inheritance, she tried to leave.
Evelyn drugged her tea.
Dr. Wallace declared her unstable.
Lionel created the legal record.
Judge Vance signed it.
“Did he keep you in the cage?” I asked.
Amelia looked toward the window.
“Not that one.”
“There was a room beneath his old apartment.”
“No windows.”
“No door handle inside.”
“He kept me there for eleven days before the order was signed.”
My stomach turned.
I had believed the basement cage was created for me.
It was an improved version of something Marcus had already done.
“Why did no one look for you?”
“My parents received videos.”
“They showed me saying I wanted to leave.”
“Marcus made me record them.”
Amelia agreed to testify.
Judge Vance was arrested for fraud, unlawful confinement, and conspiracy.
He insisted he had trusted respected professionals.
The prosecutor showed him the number of emergency orders he signed for Hale family associates.
Nine in twelve years.
Every order involved a woman.
Four remained inside private facilities.
Two had died.
Three had disappeared.
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Marcus and Evelyn had not created one domestic prison.
They had built a system.
