Chapter 8 - MARGARET'S PLAN
Police traced the call.
Burner phone.
Already discarded.
But Margaret had made one mistake.
She called from near Hawthorne Behavioral Health Center.
Police raided the facility.
Dr. Warren wasn't there.
Margaret wasn't there.
Daniel wasn't there.
But the records were.
Hundreds of patients.
Dozens of questionable admissions.
Families who had surrendered control of estates after relatives were declared incompetent.
Claire stared at the boxes being removed.
“How many?”
Torres shook her head.
“We don't know yet.”
It was bigger than Daniel.
Bigger than Claire.
Margaret had spent years exploiting vulnerable families.
Daniel found wealthy women.
Margaret built the paperwork.
Warren supplied medical legitimacy.
Claire had simply been the latest target.
Except Claire had something others hadn't.
Lily.
Then officers found a locked room beneath the records archive.
Inside were personal files.
Rebecca.
Melissa.
Claire.
And seven other women.
Each folder contained photographs taken before the relationships began.
Claire opened hers.
There she was at Lily's school.
At the grocery store.
At Michael's grave.
The earliest photograph was dated four months before she met Daniel.
Claire's knees weakened.
“He chose me.”
Torres nodded.
“It looks that way.”
“He didn't meet me by accident.”
“No.”
Claire remembered their first meeting.
A coffee shop.
Daniel had bumped into her.
Spilled coffee.
Bought her another.
Made her laugh.
It had felt like fate.
It was surveillance.
Lily found her mother crying later.
“Mom?”
Claire wiped her face.
“I'm okay.”
“You always say that when you're not.”
Claire almost smiled.
Lily sat beside her.
“Was any of it real?”
Claire looked at her daughter.
“What?”
“Daniel.”
Claire didn't know how to answer.
Maybe he had enjoyed their vacations.
Maybe some laughter had been genuine.
Maybe predators could feel affection.
But affection without humanity wasn't love.
“I don't know,” Claire said.
Lily leaned against her.
“I think the hot chocolate was real.”
Claire looked down.
“What?”
“He made good hot chocolate.”
Claire laughed through her tears.
“So maybe that part was real.”
Lily nodded.
Then her expression changed.
“I forgot something.”
“What?”
“The letters.”
“What letters?”
“The ones under my mattress.”
Claire remembered.
Daniel had taken them.
“No.”
Lily shook her head.
“Not my notes.”
She looked at Claire.
“Letters Daniel got.”
“What letters?”
“I found them in his desk.”
Claire's pulse quickened.
“Who wrote them?”
“I don't know.”
“What did they say?”
Lily thought.
“One said, ‘You promised Claire would never find out what happened to Michael.’”
Claire stopped breathing.
The room went silent.
Michael.
Her dead husband.
The investigation had just become something Claire had never imagined.
“What happened to Daddy?” Lily asked.
May you like
Claire couldn't answer.
Because Michael's death had occurred three years before Claire ever supposedly met Daniel.
