Chapter 8 - THE SECRET ABOUT OLIVIA
I froze.
Tanner lifted his head.
Tape covered his mouth.
His eyes were wide with terror.
Meredith’s voice echoed through the planetarium.
“You always wondered why Olivia’s car left the road.”
My chest tightened.
My first wife had died four years earlier.
Police had ruled it an accident.
Rain.
A sharp curve.
A broken guardrail.
I had blamed myself for not answering her final call.
Maeve whispered beside me.
“Keep her talking.”
I looked toward the projection booth.
“Where are you?”
A screen lowered from the ceiling.
A video began to play.
Olivia stood in our old kitchen.
She looked exhausted.
She looked frightened.
Her voice trembled.
“Lincoln, if you see this, something has happened.”
The image cut out.
My breath stopped.
I had never seen the recording.
Meredith appeared on the screen.
She stood somewhere inside the observatory.
“You married me because I reminded you of her.”
“That is not true.”
“It was true enough.”
“What did you do to Tanner?”
“I protected myself.”
“You drugged a child.”
“I gave him what Dr. Vale prescribed.”
“He never examined Tanner.”
“He did not need to.”
Her face moved closer to the camera.
“Your son has always been difficult.”
“He is ten.”
“He is the only person standing between me and everything Olivia left behind.”
The words landed like ice.
Officer Ruiz signaled two officers toward the side corridor.
Meredith saw them on a security monitor.
“Stop.”
The screen changed.
A live image showed Tanner’s chair connected to a metal platform above the maintenance pit.
It was not a lethal trap.
But a fall could badly injure him.
“Pull him away,” Meredith said, “and the platform releases.”
I looked around the dark room.
“There is no reason to hurt him.”
“He should have signed the transfer quietly.”
“He is a child.”
“He is an heir.”
Her honesty shocked even Maeve.
Meredith laughed softly.
“You still do not understand.”
“Olivia discovered that the clinic was using children’s guardianships to drain family trusts.”
“She planned to expose us.”
Us.
The word changed everything.
“You knew Olivia.”
“I knew her before I knew you.”
The video shifted again.
Olivia appeared in the kitchen.
This time the recording continued.
“Dr. Vale falsified evaluations.”
“Gerald Voss created emergency guardianships.”
“And Meredith Shaw recruited families.”
Meredith Shaw.
Her name before she became Meredith Pierce.
Olivia held up a folder.
“They target widowers.”
“They create symptoms in the children.”
“Then they convince the surviving parent that institutional care is necessary.”
Maeve stared at the screen.
“My God.”
The recording ended abruptly.
Meredith reappeared.
“She should have stayed quiet.”
My voice became a whisper.
“Did you kill her?”
For the first time, Meredith did not smile.
“I did not touch her car.”
“But you knew what would happen.”
She looked away.
That was answer enough.
A metallic click sounded beneath Tanner’s chair.
The platform shifted.
I moved instinctively.
“Stop!”
Meredith’s voice cracked through the speakers.
“Sign the transfer.”
A document illuminated on the front screen.
It transferred guardianship of Tanner and control of his trust to Meredith.
“Sign it, Lincoln.”
“Or your son falls.”
I looked at Tanner.
He shook his head desperately.
He did not want me to sign.
I picked up the pen placed on the nearest seat.
Meredith exhaled in relief.
Then Tanner kicked one of the blue chess pieces toward me.
It landed near my shoe.
A tiny red light blinked inside it.
A camera.
Tanner had recorded everything.
Meredith saw it too.
May you like
Her face vanished from the screen.
The platform dropped.
