Chapter 11 - The Price of Silence
Miguel was found alive three hours later in an equipment shed near the private airfield.
His left arm was broken. His face was swollen. He refused pain medication until Agent Ward promised that Claire was safe.
"He heard them talking," Ward told Claire after interviewing him. "Eleanor and Vale. They were discussing getting you out of the hospital before the baby is born."
"How?"
"They didn't say."
"And Daniel?"
"Missing."
Claire looked away.
Part of her still wanted to imagine a version of Daniel who had panicked once and could crawl back toward being human.
Then she remembered the knife moving through the curtain.
Maya arrived with worse news.
Daniel had filed an emergency petition claiming Claire lacked capacity to make medical decisions. Attached were the fake therapy records, an affidavit from Dr. Rusk, and a statement from Detective Mercer calling Claire "delusional and potentially dangerous to her unborn child."
Claire laughed once. "They are trying to take control of me before I deliver."
"Exactly."
"Can they?"
"Not if I get in front of a judge first."
A hearing was scheduled for noon by video.
Daniel appeared from an undisclosed location wearing a navy suit and a worried expression.
"Claire needs help," he told the judge. "I love my wife. I'm afraid she's being influenced by people exploiting her pregnancy anxiety."
Claire leaned toward the camera.
"Ask him why his father put thirty-eight million dollars into a trust he can't control if my baby is born alive."
Daniel's attorney objected.
Maya uploaded Charles's codicil, the video, and federal search-warrant documentation.
The judge's expression hardened.
Then Agent Ward testified that Dr. Rusk and Mercer were subjects of a federal corruption investigation.
The petition was denied.
The judge ordered Daniel to remain away from Claire pending further proceedings.
For the first time since the balcony, Claire felt a small piece of ground beneath her feet.
Then Daniel asked to speak directly to her.
The judge refused.
Daniel stared into the camera anyway.
"Claire," he said, "you need to ask Rosa what happened to my father the night he died."
Rosa went white.
The screen disconnected.
Claire slowly turned toward her.
"What did he mean?"
Rosa's hands began to tremble.
"I was with Charles."
"You told me that."
"I did not tell you everything."
Claire waited.
May you like
Rosa looked at the floor.
"Charles did not die from his cancer."
