Chapter 2 - THE DOCTOR WHO NEVER SAW ME
Detective Miller traced the call to a prepaid phone purchased with cash.
That alone told us almost nothing.
The man who had called hadn't given a name, and the number stopped accepting calls within minutes.
But he had said six words that lodged inside my head.
I tried to stop them.
I kept hearing them while the hospital staff changed my dressings, checked my blood pressure, and explained why my chest hurt when I coughed.
Who had tried to stop whom?
And why had he waited until now?
Rebecca returned the next morning carrying the petition my parents wanted a judge to sign.
She had highlighted one paragraph in yellow.
It stated that I had demonstrated escalating paranoia, financial delusions, and dangerous aggression.
Beneath it was a sworn statement from Dr. Adrian Mercer.
I read the date.
It was the morning after my father attacked me.
According to the statement, the doctor had conducted a private evaluation of me at the Croft residence.
“That's impossible,” I said.
“I know,” Rebecca replied.
“I was unconscious behind a supermarket.”
“We will establish exactly where you were and when.”
She laid out the hospital admission record, the ambulance dispatch record, and the warehouse guard's recorded 911 call.
Time wasn't a perfect witness, but sometimes it was more reliable than people.
The petition described me as a woman whose financial decisions required immediate supervision.
It requested temporary control over my bank accounts and assets before a full hearing.
Then I saw my mother's signed declaration.
She claimed she had spent years protecting me from myself.
She described childhood tantrums I had never had and drinking problems I didn't possess.
She even mentioned an imaginary incident at a family fundraiser when I allegedly threatened a guest.
The guest's name was left blank.
“She's constructing a biography for me,” I said.
Rebecca didn't contradict me.
“That's why we challenge every specific factual assertion.”
That afternoon, Detective Miller and an investigator from the county attorney's office visited Dr. Mercer's clinic.
He had already closed it for the day.
His receptionist said he had flown to Chicago on a family emergency.
The flight record eventually showed no ticket purchased in his name.
Meanwhile, my parents' public relations office released a statement saying the family was deeply concerned about my health and respectfully requested privacy.
A sympathetic local website repeated their version within hours.
Someone sent Rebecca a screenshot.
Under a flattering photograph of my parents at a charity gala, the headline asked whether a successful Minneapolis family was facing a heartbreaking mental-health crisis.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
They had abandoned me on pavement in temperatures low enough to kill me.
Now they wanted sympathy for having such a troublesome daughter.
“Can we make them take it down?”
“We can send a correction and preserve the publication as evidence,” Rebecca said.
“But winning an argument online isn't our priority.”
“What is?”
“Keeping you legally protected while the investigators follow the money.”
Before dinner, a social worker informed me that my parents had requested access to my medical records.
The request was denied because they had no authority to receive them.
I felt a surge of relief that lasted perhaps three seconds.
Then Rebecca's phone buzzed.
Our forensic accountant, Elaine Porter, had found an unusual payment.
On the same day Mercer signed his statement, a Croft Capital affiliate had transferred $96,000 to a consulting company registered to his sister.
Rebecca put the call on speaker.
“Could it have a legitimate purpose?” she asked.
“Possibly,” Elaine said.
“But the invoice references an urgent family-risk assessment, and the consulting company has no advertised medical services.”
I closed my eyes.
My parents had apparently placed a price on declaring me incompetent.
Rebecca instructed Elaine to preserve the original records and document the source of every file.
She explained that suspicion was not proof and that a payment had to be connected to a wrongful act before anyone could responsibly draw conclusions.
I appreciated her precision even as anger burned through me.
A nurse came to tell us visiting hours were ending.
As Rebecca gathered her papers, an unfamiliar orderly appeared at the doorway.
He carried a paper bag with my name written across it.
“Delivery for Ms. Croft.”
Rebecca stopped him.
“Who sent that?”
“Someone left it at the front desk.”
Inside was a woman's glove, stiff with dried mud.
It was my mother's glove.
I knew because I had bought her the pair for Christmas.
There was also a handwritten note.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY ASLEEP.
Rebecca immediately called security.
May you like
I stared at the glove, suddenly certain that the person who had delivered it knew far more about the alley than my parents had admitted.
