Chapter 3 - THE MAN DOWNSTAIRS
Helen did not ask me whether I wanted to see Dererick.
She simply turned to Kevin.
"Take Anna to conference room seven."
Then she pressed the intercom.
"Tell Mr. Hale I'll be down in a moment."
I stared at her.
"His last name isn't Hale."
Helen's hand stopped over the button.
The receptionist answered after a pause.
"I'm sorry. The gentleman said his name was Martin Hale. He said he's Anna's husband."
A chill moved through me.
Not Dererick.
Someone else.
Kevin picked up the flash drive and the forensic laptop.
"Now."
We moved through a side door into a narrow hallway used by staff.
Conference room seven had no exterior windows and only one entrance.
Kevin locked it behind us.
"Do you know a Martin Hale?"
"No."
"Could Dererick be using that name?"
"He wouldn't need to."
My voice sounded distant.
"Unless he wanted Helen to think he wasn't there."
Kevin opened the copy of my files and searched for Hale.
Seven results appeared.
M. HALE.
HALE CONSULTING.
MH APPROVED.
My stomach tightened.
He opened a PDF invoice.
HALE BEHAVIORAL CONSULTING.
The document billed Dererick for "assessment services," "observation," and "case preparation."
The dates went back more than two years.
"Behavioral," I whispered.
Kevin opened another file.
This one contained a photograph of a man leaving a restaurant.
He looked to be in his early fifties, with iron-gray hair and narrow glasses.
The caption beneath it said M. HALE - PRIMARY.
"That's him?"
Kevin asked.
"I've never seen him."
A knock sounded at the door.
I jumped.
"Kevin."
Helen's voice.
He opened it only after checking through the narrow glass panel.
Helen stepped inside and locked the door behind her.
Her face was pale.
"He's gone."
"What did he want?"
"He said he was your husband and that you were having an acute mental health episode."
I stared at her.
Helen continued.
"He said you had left home confused this morning and that your family was worried."
"My family?"
"That's what he said."
"Did he ask to see me?"
"He asked whether you were here."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I couldn't confirm whether any client was present."
Helen's jaw tightened.
"Then he smiled and said, 'That's all I needed to know.'"
Kevin leaned back against the table.
"He was confirming she came here."
"How?"
I looked at my purse.
The tracker lay inside a clear evidence pouch Kevin had found in the conference room supply cabinet.
"He already knew."
Helen nodded.
"We need law enforcement."
Fear rose immediately.
"What if Dererick has already told them I'm unstable?"
"Then we give them evidence."
"Photographs can be explained away."
"Not all of this."
She pointed to the laptop.
"And not the tracker."
Kevin shook his head.
"We should preserve the original device before anyone touches it."
Helen made a call to a former federal prosecutor who now handled corporate investigations.
Within forty minutes, two people arrived.
One was a digital evidence specialist.
The other was Detective Lena Ortiz from the city's major crimes unit.
She wore no uniform.
She carried a small notebook and had the tired, patient expression of someone who had learned not to react too early.
She listened without interrupting while I told her about the tea.
The grogginess.
The bruises.
The black bag.
The camera.
The photographs.
The fabric.
Elise Morgan.
When I finished, Ortiz looked at the tracker.
"Did you see your husband put this in your purse?"
"No."
"Do you know how long it's been there?"
"No."
"Can anyone else access your purse at home?"
"Dererick."
"Anyone at work?"
"Sometimes my assistant carries it if we're moving between meetings."
She nodded and wrote something down.
"We need to be careful about assumptions."
The words irritated me even though I knew she was right.
"I watched him do it."
"I believe you watched something deeply concerning."
Ortiz's eyes stayed on mine.
"But if I move too early and we don't have enough, he learns you're onto him. Then evidence disappears."
I thought about the second laptop under our bed.
"The computer is still there."
"Maybe."
The word hit me.
Maybe.
Dererick had been downstairs when I left.
He could have discovered the briefcase had shifted.
He could have noticed something else.
He could already be destroying everything.
"I need to get it."
"No."
Ortiz said it immediately.
"You do not go back alone."
"Then get a warrant."
"A warrant requires probable cause tied to a crime."
"Drugging me isn't a crime?"
"It is if we can establish it happened."
Anger surged through me.
"So I need to get drugged again before anyone can help me?"
Helen touched my wrist.
Ortiz did not become defensive.
"No."
She leaned forward.
"You need a medical exam today. You need blood and urine testing. You need your unexplained bruises photographed by someone independent. You need the tea supplies preserved if possible. And you need to stop telling anyone you're fine."
That last part caught me off guard.
"What?"
"People in coercive situations often minimize danger because they're trying to stay functional."
She closed her notebook.
"Don't minimize this."
We went to a private clinic used by the department for evidence collection.
A physician documented every bruise I could find.
Blood was drawn.
Urine was collected.
The doctor asked what medications I took.
I listed them.
She asked about alcohol.
I answered.
She asked whether I had ever been diagnosed with a sleep disorder.
"No."
"Have you ever been treated for anxiety or depression?"
I hesitated.
"I saw a therapist after my father died."
"Name?"
"Dr. Meredith Shaw."
Ortiz, seated near the wall, looked up.
"The woman in the surveillance photo?"
I stared at her.
"How did you know?"
"You mentioned her when we reviewed the baseline folder."
I had forgotten.
My thoughts felt scattered even without the tea.
"She's my best friend."
"And your therapist?"
"She was my therapist first."
Even saying it aloud sounded strange now.
"After my dad died, I was referred to her. We became friends after I stopped seeing her professionally."
Ortiz wrote down the name.
"Did she introduce you to Dererick?"
My stomach dropped.
I looked at her.
"Yes."
The room went silent.
Meredith had introduced us at a charity fundraiser.
She had laughed when Dererick asked for my number.
She had encouraged me after our first date.
She had stood beside me at my wedding.
She had held my hands five minutes before I walked down the aisle and told me I had finally found someone safe.
Ortiz's expression did not change.
"Does Meredith know details about your finances?"
"Some."
"Your sleep?"
"Yes."
"Your family relationships?"
"Everything."
A terrible pressure built behind my ribs.
"No."
I shook my head.
"Meredith wouldn't do this."
Ortiz did not argue.
"Maybe she didn't."
I wanted the sentence to comfort me.
It did not.
Detective Ortiz asked me one question before we left the clinic that changed the way I saw Meredith.
"When you first met Dr. Shaw, who referred you?"
I searched my memory.
"A grief coordinator from the hospital."
"Name?"
I could not remember.
"There was a list. I think Meredith was one of three names."
Ortiz wrote that down.
"Did you choose her?"
"Yes."
Then I hesitated.
My father had died on a Thursday.
The hospital social worker called me Friday morning.
I had been barely functioning.
She mentioned three therapists, but one name came with a personal recommendation.
Meredith Shaw.
"She said Meredith had experience with complicated grief and family businesses."
Ortiz looked up.
"Family businesses?"
I nodded slowly.
At the time, that detail had seemed comforting.
My grief was tied to inheriting responsibilities I never expected to carry so soon.
A therapist who understood both loss and corporate pressure sounded perfect.
Now it sounded selected.
"Can we find that social worker?"
"We can try."
I called the hospital from the secure line.
The woman who answered searched old staffing records.
The grief coordinator I remembered had left three years earlier.
Her name was Paula Denton.
Ortiz requested contact information.
An hour later, Paula returned the call.
She remembered my father because he had been a prominent local businessman.
She did not remember recommending Meredith specifically.
"Our standard list had six providers," she said.
"Dr. Shaw wasn't one of our contracted referrals then."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"But I got her name from the hospital."
Paula hesitated.
"It's possible someone else gave it to you."
"Who?"
"A nurse, physician, volunteer. I can't say."
Ortiz asked whether Dr. Evelyn Price had worked at the hospital at that time.
The name meant nothing to me.
Paula answered immediately.
"Of course. She chaired behavioral health administration."
Ortiz and I exchanged a look.
It was the first time Price's name entered the case, though we did not yet know her face.
Paula continued.
"Dr. Price sometimes reviewed bereavement resources for high-profile families."
The phrase high-profile families made my stomach twist.
When the call ended, Ortiz said nothing for several seconds.
"You think Meredith was placed in my path."
"I think we need records."
"That's detective language for yes."
She almost smiled.
"It's detective language for don't outrun the evidence."
I looked down at the clinic band around my wrist.
For years, I had told people meeting Meredith was one of the few good things that came from the worst week of my life.
Maybe that was exactly the story someone had wanted me to tell.
The clinic doctor photographed a bruise near my shoulder with a measurement scale beside it.
Seeing the mark treated as evidence changed something in me.
For weeks, I had asked Dererick whether the bruises mattered.
He always answered for both of us.
Now nobody explained the mark away.
They documented it.
The bruise did not have to prove the entire crime.
It only had to remain what it was until other evidence could speak beside it.
My temporary plan was to stay in a hotel registered through Helen's firm under a corporate booking.
Ortiz told me not to contact Dererick until we had the medical results.
That became impossible at 2:13 p.m.
My mother called.
I answered because Dererick almost never contacted her.
"Mom?"
She was crying.
"Anna, sweetheart, where are you?"
My chest tightened.
"Why?"
"Dererick called me."
Of course he had.
"What did he say?"
"He said you disappeared this morning. He said you've been confused for weeks."
I closed my eyes.
"Mom, listen to me."
"He said you've been waking up in places and not remembering how you got there."
"That isn't true."
"He said you almost drove into traffic this morning."
My mouth fell open.
"What?"
"He said he tried to stop you and you screamed at him."
I stood so quickly my chair rolled backward.
"Mom, none of that happened."
Silence.
Then my mother whispered.
"He sent me a video."
The room seemed to vanish around me.
"What video?"
"You were in the kitchen last night."
My hands went cold.
"You were crying. You kept saying you didn't know where you were."
"Mom, I was in bed last night."
"Anna..."
"I was in bed."
My voice cracked.
"He drugged me."
My mother began sobbing harder.
"Sweetheart, Dererick said you might say something like that."
I could not speak.
He had prepared her.
He had called first.
He had given her the story before I could give her the truth.
"Mom, where are you?"
"At Meredith's office."
Every sound in the hotel room disappeared.
"Why are you there?"
"She called me too."
May you like
My mother inhaled shakily.
"Anna, Meredith says she's been worried about you for months."
