Chapter 5 - The Signature
Alexander took the phone with both hands.
“Ruth.
I’m Alexander.”
I could hear her through the speaker.
“Then tell me why your name is on her confinement paperwork.”
“I never signed anything like that.”
“You signed something.”
His eyes moved toward Rebecca.
“After the accident.
My father brought forms.”
“What forms?” Rebecca asked.
“Hospital releases.
Insurance.
Permission to move her to a specialist.”
“You were told she was alive?”
“For eleven hours.”
His voice roughened.
“Then they told me she died during surgery.”
Julian had arranged everything.
The hospital contact.
The identification.
The sealed casket.
Alexander had been recovering from two broken ribs and a concussion after the same crash.
He had never seen her body.
“I asked,” he said.
“My father told me I shouldn’t remember her that way.”
On the phone, Ruth made a small, angry sound.
“She remembered you asking for her.”
Alexander covered his mouth.
Ruth had worked at a private recovery facility.
Elise had arrived with head injuries, memory problems, and instructions that visitors might trigger dangerous agitation.
Every time she improved, her medication changed.
Every time she asked to leave, another evaluation declared her unready.
“Then she started hiding the pills,” Ruth said.
Six months earlier, Ruth helped her slip out during a delivery.
Elise stayed in Ruth’s spare bedroom for four nights.
On the fifth day, a van pulled into the driveway.
“They had medical transport papers.
They said she was a danger to herself.”
“Did you call the police?” Ortiz asked from the doorway.
She had returned without Price.
“Yes.
The paperwork looked legitimate.
By the time anyone checked further, the facility said she’d been discharged.”
“Was she pregnant then?” Rebecca asked.
A pause.
“Early.
She kept asking how it had happened.”
Alexander lowered the phone.
Ruth continued.
“She told me they’d used embryos from a fertility clinic.
She said she never agreed.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Vanessa’s false pregnancy.
Elise’s real one.
A child promised company shares before anyone had even met him.
Ortiz asked Ruth to stay where she was.
Officers would come to her.
Then she faced Alexander.
“Did you and Elise undergo fertility treatment?”
He nodded slowly.
“Before the accident.
We had embryos frozen.”
Rebecca’s jaw tightened.
“We need those records.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
Attached was a photograph of Lily leaving the hotel with June.
Underneath it were six words.
YOU HAVE FOUND ENOUGH.
GO HOME.
I showed Ortiz.
May you like
Before she could speak, a second message arrived.
ASK WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HUSBAND.
