Chapter 4
“Ryan!”
I ran toward him before I could stop myself.
Lily clung to my hand.
Ryan looked down at the blood.
“It’s not mine.”
My knees almost gave out.
An officer followed him inside.
“Mrs. Carter is in custody.”
Diane.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, my entire body kept shaking.
“What happened?”
“She pulled a gun from the garden shed,” Ryan said.
I stared at him.
“My mother had a gun hidden there.”
The officer nodded.
“She fired into the air while attempting to escape. No one was struck.”
Lily started crying again.
That was enough.
I knelt in front of her.
“We’re leaving.”
This time nobody argued.
At the hospital, doctors examined Lily immediately.
Mild concussion.
A large bruise.
No fracture.
No internal bleeding.
I nearly collapsed when they told me.
I sat beside her bed, holding her hand while she slept.
Ryan stood by the window.
For an hour, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
I stared at Lily.
He tried again.
“Emily.”
“Don’t.”
“I need to say it.”
“No. You need to understand something.”
He turned.
I looked at him.
“When I saw our daughter on the floor, I thought your mother might have killed her.”
His face twisted.
“And your first instinct was to protect the party.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“You told me I was making a scene.”
“I know.”
“You believed Diane before Lily.”
“I know.”
The third time sounded broken.
But I wasn’t ready to comfort him.
“I don’t know if I can forgive that.”
Ryan nodded slowly.
“You shouldn’t have to tonight.”
That answer surprised me.
Before I could respond, a detective entered.
Detective Marcus Hale.
Calm voice.
Tired eyes.
He asked if we could speak privately.
Ryan and I moved into the hallway.
“Frank is alive and stable,” he said.
Relief hit me.
“How bad is he?”
“Severely malnourished. Evidence of long-term sedative exposure. Muscle wasting from confinement.”
Ryan leaned against the wall.
Hale continued.
“Doctors believe he’ll recover significantly with treatment.”
Then his expression changed.
“We found something else.”
I knew immediately it was bad.
“What?”
“Diane wasn’t acting alone.”
Ryan lifted his head.
Hale opened a folder.
“We located medication logs, financial transfers, and security records.”
He slid a photograph toward us.
A man entering Diane’s house.
I recognized him.
“Dr. Peterson.”
Ryan stared.
Peterson had been Frank’s doctor.
He was the man who signed Frank’s death certificate.
Hale nodded.
“He appears to have provided the sedatives and falsified medical paperwork.”
Ryan cursed under his breath.
“There’s more.”
Another photograph.
This time my stomach dropped.
The man was standing outside our house.
Not Diane’s.
Ours.
“When was this taken?”
“Two weeks ago.”
I grabbed the picture.
“That’s our driveway.”
Ryan looked horrified.
Hale said, “We believe Peterson had access to Lily’s medical records and may have attempted to establish documentation that she was medically incapable of inheriting or controlling assets later.”
“What?”
The hallway tilted around me.
“Why?”
“If Lily were declared permanently incapacitated, guardianship of her trust could potentially be controlled by another adult.”
Ryan whispered, “My mother.”
Hale nodded.
I thought about every strange illness Lily had experienced that year.
The headaches.
The stomach pain.
The unexplained sleepiness after visits to Diane’s house.
My blood went cold.
“She’s been sick.”
Ryan looked at me.
“What?”
“After staying with Diane.”
I grabbed Hale’s arm.
“Test her.”
He immediately called a nurse.
Within minutes, doctors ordered toxicology screening.
Ryan sat beside me while we waited.
I couldn’t look at him.
“I thought she had allergies,” I whispered.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“But I kept letting her visit.”
“So did I.”
His voice cracked.
“We both trusted the wrong person.”
Hours later, the doctor returned.
My heart stopped when I saw her expression.
“We found traces of a prescription sedative in Lily’s blood.”
I stared.
“She wasn’t prescribed anything.”
“We know.”
Ryan stood so quickly his chair fell.
“How much?”
“Low level currently. But based on her reported symptoms, repeated exposure is possible.”
I felt sick.
My daughter.
Someone had been drugging my daughter.
Ryan walked into the bathroom and vomited.
I sat frozen.
Then anger came.
Not hot anger.
Cold anger.
The kind that changes you.
When Detective Hale returned, I told him everything.
Every visit.
Every illness.
Every bottle of juice Diane insisted Lily finish.
Every time Diane volunteered to babysit.
He wrote it all down.
Near dawn, Frank was wheeled past our room.
Ryan ran to him.
I followed.
Frank looked fragile but alert.
He saw Lily sleeping through the glass.
Tears filled his eyes.
“I should have protected her.”
I touched his shoulder.
“You survived.”
He shook his head.
“There’s something you need to know.”
“What?”
His voice dropped.
“Diane has been trying to remove you too.”
I froze.
“Remove me?”
Frank looked at Ryan.
“There are divorce papers in her lawyer’s office.”
Ryan frowned.
“I never filed for divorce.”
“I know.”
Frank looked back at me.
“She forged your signature.”
My heart slammed.
“Why?”
“Because under the trust rules, if Lily’s parents divorce and one parent is declared unstable, control can temporarily shift.”
I already knew whose parent Diane wanted declared unstable.
Me.
Ryan whispered, “She was setting Emily up.”
Frank nodded.
May you like
Then he said something that made the hallway seem colder.
“She’s been doing it for months.”
