Chapter 14 - The Doctor’s Son
Evan Keller was thirty-one and worked as a freelance security consultant.
He had no medical license.
He did, however, have access to his father’s office systems, cameras, and passwords.
He also had debt.
A lot of it.
According to bank records investigators obtained, Diane Mason had paid Evan three times in the past four months.
The transfers totaled eighteen thousand dollars.
Rachel stared at the number. “For what?”
“Evan says tech work,” Ortiz said. “We’re verifying.”
Claire already knew.
The deleted medical entries.
The photographs.
The surveillance.
The strange way Diane always seemed to know where Claire had been.
At 6:40 that evening, police executed a warrant connected to Evan’s devices.
What they found turned the case from ugly to enormous.
Folders labeled by date.
Photographs of Claire.
Copies of text messages between Grant and Diane.
Scanned medical documents.
Draft statements describing Claire as “confused,” “emotionally volatile,” and “unable to safely care for infant.”
One document was formatted like an affidavit.
It had not been filed.
But Grant’s name was already typed at the bottom.
So was Dr. Keller’s.
Claire read the first paragraph and felt physically ill.
It claimed she had become increasingly unstable after childbirth and had “repeatedly expressed irrational fears that family members intended to take the child.”
Rachel slapped the page onto the table.
“They were going to call the truth a delusion.”
Claire said nothing.
That sentence was worse than any insult Grant had ever used.
Because that was the trap.
If she suspected them, suspicion became proof she was unstable.
If she cried, the tears became proof.
If she fought back, resistance became proof.
And if she stayed silent, they controlled the record.
Ortiz pointed to another recovered file.
A calendar.
Tomorrow’s 9:00 a.m. appointment with Keller was highlighted.
Under it:
G + D present. If noncompliant, escalate.
“What does escalate mean?” Claire asked.
Ortiz looked grim.
“We don’t know yet.”
Then she turned one more page.
There was a second appointment on the calendar.
Not for Claire.
For Noah.
Location: a private pediatric clinic near the airport.
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Claire stared at it.
The flight to Phoenix departed at 7:10.
Rachel whispered, “They were going to have him examined before they left.”
Ortiz nodded.
Claire looked at the clinic name.
May you like
And then she recognized it.
Dr. Keller’s daughter worked there.
