Chapter 10 - The Third Plan
The third plan arrived disguised as concern.
My mother called Maya’s office and requested a meeting.
She said she wanted to cooperate.
Nobody believed her.
Hale arranged for the meeting to happen inside the police station.
Mom walked in wearing the same cream-colored coat she wore to church.
She looked exhausted.
For the first time, she did not ask me to forgive Rachel.
She asked about the baby.
“She’s stable.”
Mom nodded.
Then she cried.
I felt nothing.
“I didn’t know Robert would go this far.”
“You drugged my tea.”
Her face froze.
“I did not.”
“Your fingerprints were on the gloves.”
“I clean the kitchen with those gloves.”
“Dad’s medication bottle was in your trash.”
“I didn’t put it there.”
“Then who did?”
Mom looked through the glass wall toward Hale.
“Victor.”
Rachel inhaled sharply.
Mom told us Uncle Victor designed the original plan.
According to her, Dad only wanted to delay the trust through legal challenges.
Victor believed legal action would fail.
He suggested using medication to create a pregnancy emergency that looked natural.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I didn’t believe he was serious.”
“Then why did you destroy the glass?”
Mom looked down.
That was her mistake.
She had never told police she knew the glass was destroyed.
Hale immediately noticed.
“So you did know it was contaminated.”
Mom realized too late.
Her attorney interrupted.
The meeting stopped.
But we already had what mattered.
Mom knew about the tea.
Maybe she had not mixed it.
Maybe she had.
Either way, she knew.
Then Mom did something unexpected.
As she stood to leave, she looked at me.
“Claire, don’t go to your appointment tomorrow.”
Daniel frowned.
“What appointment?”
Mom’s attorney grabbed her arm.
She pulled away.
“Ask the clinic why they changed the ultrasound room.”
Then she left.
Daniel immediately called Dr. Shaw.
My scheduled ultrasound was at ten the following morning.
The hospital had moved it from the main obstetrics wing to a satellite imaging suite because of “equipment maintenance.”
Dr. Shaw had not requested the change.
Security investigated.
The maintenance order was fake.
Someone had entered the hospital scheduling system using a physician account.
The physician was on vacation.
Hale traced the login.
It came from a computer inside Uncle Victor’s pharmacy.
The third plan was no longer theoretical.
Someone wanted me isolated.
The police searched Victor’s pharmacy that night.
They found medication.
Fake identification cards.
Burner phones.
And printed maps of the hospital.
One page had my ultrasound appointment circled.
Victor disappeared before police arrived.
His car was found abandoned near the river.
Dad claimed he did not know where Victor was.
Rachel did not believe him.
Neither did Mom.
Then Hale found a burner phone hidden beneath Victor’s desk.
There were dozens of messages between Victor and someone identified only as R.
At first we assumed R meant Robert.
My father.
Then analysts compared the writing style.
The messages did not sound like Dad.
One conversation mentioned him in the third person.
Robert is losing control.
Another message read.
If he hesitates, we finish it ourselves.
Daniel stared at Hale.
“Who is R?”
Hale looked at Rachel.
Nobody spoke.
Then Rachel whispered.
“There’s another Robert in the family.”
My father’s cousin.
Dr. Richard Mercer.
May you like
A maternal-fetal medicine specialist.
The same doctor who had recommended the hospital where I was receiving treatment.
