Chapter 3 - THE DOCTOR WHO LIED ABOUT HER DEATH
“Anna was alive when you arrived, and you let me bury her without telling me she suspected someone had tampered with her medicine?”
Dominic's voice echoed through the nearly empty ballroom.
Dr. Adrian Bell lowered his head.
Michael stood beside the fireplace, looking as though he wanted the marble floor to swallow him.
“Dominic,” Bell began, “your wife was seriously ill when I examined her.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“She had an underlying heart condition.”
“And did someone change her medication?”
Bell hesitated.
“I can't establish that from what I saw.”
“Then tell me what you saw.”
The physician glanced toward Michael.
Dominic slammed his palm against the mantel.
“Stop looking at my brother!”
Bell flinched.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then he spoke.
“Anna called my office that afternoon. She believed pills had been removed from her prescription container and replaced with something else.”
Dominic felt his stomach tighten.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her not to take anything until I examined the medication.”
“Did you examine it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I arrived, Michael said the medicine case was missing.”
Dominic slowly turned.
Michael's face had lost its color.
“You took it.”
“I was trying to prevent a disaster.”
“What disaster?”
“Theodore Whitmore was threatening to call in the loans on our shipping company. Anna had discovered financial transfers she thought were fraudulent.”
“Were they fraudulent?”
Michael looked down.
Dominic stepped toward him.
“Answer me.”
“Yes,” Michael whispered.
The admission landed harder than Dominic expected.
Their family businesses had always operated in dangerous territory.
Dominic knew that.
He'd spent years trying to move their holdings into legitimate industries, away from the shadow of his father's criminal associations.
But he'd trusted Michael to manage the investment companies honestly.
Now that trust was crumbling.
“Anna found the transfers,” Michael continued. “She threatened to take everything to a federal investigator.”
“And you silenced her?”
“No!”
Michael's voice cracked.
“I argued with her. I took the medicine case because she told me she'd hidden copies of the financial records inside it.”
Dominic stared.
“She was sick, Michael.”
“I know.”
“She needed that medication.”
“I gave the case to Theodore's representative. I thought they'd remove the documents and return it.”
Dominic grabbed the front of his brother's jacket.
“You handed my sick wife's medicine to strangers?”
Michael didn't resist.
“I didn't know she would die.”
Those seven words filled the room with a terrible silence.
Dr. Bell stepped forward.
“Dominic, I should have insisted on seeing the original medication. I should also have reported her concerns when she died.”
“Instead, you certified a natural death.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Bell's eyes filled with shame.
“The Whitmores were major donors to the hospital foundation. Theodore's attorneys threatened my practice and claimed Anna had no evidence.”
Dominic released Michael.
He could barely stand looking at either man.
“You both protected yourselves.”
Neither answered.
“You let Sophie grow up thinking her mother died without anyone being able to help her.”
Michael wiped his face.
“I've hated myself every day.”
Dominic's expression remained cold.
“Then you should have told the truth every day.”
He turned toward Bell.
“And the report claiming my mother has dementia?”
Bell swallowed.
“Camille supplied recordings of Evelyn appearing disoriented. I signed a preliminary evaluation without conducting the examination I should have performed.”
“You've been treating my family for fifteen years.”
“I know.”
“No. I don't think you do.”
Dominic summoned his security chief.
“Escort Dr. Bell to the front office. Record his contact information and preserve the security footage of this conversation. Nobody is destroying another piece of evidence in my house.”
Bell nodded weakly.
Dominic looked at Michael.
“You're staying.”
His brother said nothing.
Outside, the sky had turned black.
Inside the guesthouse, Emily was helping Evelyn settle into a comfortable chair.
Sophie sat beside her grandmother, drawing with the same blue marker she'd used on the window.
When Dominic returned, his daughter immediately looked up.
“Is Grandma coming home?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
Sophie gave a relieved smile.
Then she studied his face.
“Did Uncle Michael get in trouble?”
Dominic sat beside her.
“Uncle Michael did some things he needs to answer for.”
“Because of Mommy?”
Dominic felt his throat tighten.
“Some of them, yes.”
Sophie looked down at her drawing.
“Mommy didn't like fighting.”
“I know.”
“She said grown-ups should tell the truth even when it's hard.”
Dominic pulled his daughter into his arms.
“She was right about that, too.”
Across the room, Emily quietly turned away.
She understood how much Sophie needed this moment.
But Evelyn noticed Emily wince as she reached for a blanket.
“Your shoulder is worse,” Evelyn said.
“It's manageable.”
“Please don't pretend for my sake.”
Emily tried to smile.
“I've had worse days.”
Evelyn looked at her carefully.
“Camille hurt you.”
Emily hesitated.
“She grabbed my shoulder when I refused to erase Sophie's message.”
Dominic heard the words.
His expression changed.
“Emily, did she threaten you?”
Emily didn't answer immediately.
She was thinking about her seven-year-old son, Noah.
About the inhaler beside his bed.
About the unpaid electricity bill on her kitchen counter.
Finally, she nodded.
“She said I'd never find another job in Chicago if I kept asking questions.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“You won't lose your job because you protected my family.”
Emily looked at him.
“Mr. Moretti, I appreciate that. But I need more than a promise. My son depends on my paycheck.”
Dominic regarded her with new respect.
“Then tomorrow we'll put everything in writing. Paid medical leave, no loss of benefits, and proper treatment for your shoulder. You've earned that.”
Emily blinked.
For years, wealthy employers had made promises to her without meaning them.
This time, she wanted to believe him.
“Thank you,” she said.
But Evelyn was staring at the paper in Dominic's hand.
“Anna mentioned the medicine case,” she whispered.
Dominic turned.
“Do you remember anything else?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Two days before she died, Anna came to my room carrying a small camera.”
“A camera?”
“One of those little digital ones. Sophie loved taking pictures with it.”
Sophie suddenly sat upright.
“My purple camera?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“It's in Mommy's memory box.”
Dominic frowned.
“What pictures did Anna take?”
“She said she'd photographed something she wasn't supposed to see.”
“What?”
“She wouldn't tell me. She only said Michael had lied about who was visiting the lake house.”
Michael had always insisted that he was in Milwaukee meeting investors during most of Anna's final evening.
Dr. Bell had just destroyed part of that alibi.
Dominic stood.
“Where's the memory box?”
Sophie led them upstairs to her bedroom.
The room smelled faintly of lavender.
A framed photograph of Anna sat beside Sophie's bed.
Dominic paused before it.
His wife was laughing, sunlight shining on her brown hair.
He remembered taking that photograph.
It had been a Sunday afternoon.
Before everything went wrong.
Sophie pulled a wooden box from beneath her bed.
Inside were birthday cards, a pink hair ribbon, a small bracelet, and the purple camera.
“I kept all Mommy's things,” she explained.
Dominic gently touched the ribbon.
“I know, sweetheart.”
The camera's battery had died years earlier.
His security chief found a compatible charger in the household electronics cabinet.
While it powered on, Dominic examined the photographs stored on its memory card.
There were pictures of Sophie at the beach.
Anna laughing beside Evelyn.
A birthday cake.
A family picnic.
Then the images changed.
Photographs of folders.
Bank transfer summaries.
A map of the lakefront property with a red line running through its eastern shoreline.
Dominic leaned closer.
The red line appeared to mark a proposed service road across land his father had reserved for Sophie.
“Why would Anna photograph this?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“I don't know.”
The next picture showed a black sedan parked outside the lake house.
The date matched the afternoon before Anna's death.
Then came another photograph.
This one had been taken through a partially open kitchen door.
Michael stood beside a man wearing a tan overcoat.
Between them was Anna's blue leather medicine case.
Dominic enlarged the image.
He recognized Michael immediately.
But the other man made his blood run cold.
Theodore Whitmore.
Camille's father.
The billionaire developer who had repeatedly assured Dominic he'd never met Anna Moretti.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
“My God.”
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“Whitmore was there.”
But then Emily, standing behind him, noticed something reflected in the kitchen window.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Dominic turned.
“What is it?”
“Look at the reflection.”
He enlarged the image again.
Beside Theodore stood a third figure, mostly hidden by the doorframe.
The person was holding a prescription bottle.
And on the white label was a name.
Evelyn Moretti.
Dominic slowly turned toward his mother.
“The medicine wasn't only meant for Anna.”
Evelyn looked terrified.
Then Sophie pointed to the bottom corner of the photograph.
“Daddy, look.”
Dominic enlarged it once more.
The third person's face came into focus.
It was Camille Whitmore.
May you like
And the photograph had been taken three years before she supposedly met Dominic.
Camille had been inside his home before his wife died.
