Chapter 13 - The Syringe.
Daniel arrived at St. Vincent with Ortiz and Maya.
Emma stayed with Noah under police protection.
Rachel sat handcuffed in a security office beside the emergency department.
Her face was bruised.
Her lower lip was split.
A nurse had cleaned blood from one side of her neck.
Daniel stopped in the doorway.
"What happened to you?"
Rachel laughed weakly.
"Nice to see you too."
Ortiz placed an evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a syringe containing clear liquid.
"Why did you bring this into Margaret's room?"
Rachel looked at Daniel.
"I didn't."
Daniel closed his eyes.
"Please don't do that."
"I didn't bring it."
"It was in your hand."
"Because I took it from Evan Pike."
Ortiz leaned forward.
"Pike is here?"
"He was."
Rachel spoke quickly now.
She had received a message from Margaret's number shortly after leaving Daniel's house.
The message said Margaret wanted to confess everything and needed Rachel to come alone.
Rachel suspected a trap but went anyway because she believed Margaret might finally cooperate.
In the hospital parking structure, Evan Pike grabbed her.
They fought inside a service stairwell.
Pike struck her twice and tried to inject her with the syringe.
Rachel bit his hand, seized the syringe, and ran toward Margaret's floor.
Security found her first.
"Why didn't you call police?" Ortiz asked.
Rachel stared at her.
"Because the last ten pieces of evidence all say I'm the criminal."
"That is exactly when you call police."
Rachel looked down.
"I panicked."
Daniel wanted to believe her.
He also knew panic had become the family's favorite explanation for terrible decisions.
Ortiz sent officers to search the parking structure.
They found blood in the stairwell and a broken watch identified as Pike's.
They did not find Pike.
The liquid in the syringe was tested immediately.
It was insulin.
Margaret was not diabetic.
A large dose could have killed her.
Maya stood beside the vending machines while they waited.
"If Pike tried to inject Rachel with insulin, he may have wanted her dead."
Daniel looked through the glass toward the security room.
"Or Rachel wanted Mom dead and invented Pike."
"Both are possible."
"I hate that sentence."
"Get used to it until we have facts."
Margaret finally agreed to speak with Ortiz.
Daniel was not allowed in the room, but Maya obtained permission to observe through the open door.
Margaret looked small beneath the hospital blanket.
For the first time in Daniel's life, she looked old.
Ortiz placed a photograph of the syringe beside her.
"Do you know why your daughter came here?"
Margaret stared at it.
"To kill me."
Rachel shouted from the hallway.
"Liar!"
Security pulled her back.
Margaret did not flinch.
Ortiz sat down.
"We recovered Richard's files."
Margaret's face changed.
Not fear.
Grief.
"Then Daniel knows."
"He knows about the fake trust."
Margaret closed her eyes.
"I never wanted Noah."
Daniel felt something violent move through him.
He stepped into the doorway before Maya could stop him.
"You put your hands on my wife and terrified my son for an account you knew was fake?"
Margaret looked at the scratches she had put on his face.
"I needed Rachel to believe I was taking control of it."
"So you framed Emma?"
"Rachel would only panic if the transfer looked real."
"You forged medical records."
"Voss handled the paperwork."
"You hired Pike."
Margaret hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
"I hired him to watch Rachel."
"He tried to run us over."
Margaret shook her head.
"I never ordered that."
"He broke into my house."
"I did not order that either."
Daniel stepped closer.
"You expect me to believe you lost control of the criminal you hired?"
Margaret's voice cracked.
"Yes."
Daniel almost laughed.
Then she said something that silenced him.
"Because Pike doesn't work for me anymore."
Ortiz leaned forward.
"Who does he work for?"
Margaret looked toward Rachel in the hallway.
Rachel shook her head desperately.
"Don't."
Margaret whispered the answer.
"Charles Voss."
Maya went rigid.
Margaret continued.
"And Voss doesn't work for Rachel."
Daniel stared at her.
"Then who?"
Margaret looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"Your father."
Rachel's attorney arrived before police formally charged her.
He advised silence.
Rachel ignored him long enough to tell Daniel one thing.
"Check Dad's death file again."
Daniel stared through the security-office glass.
"Why?"
"Because the morning he died, Voss was the first person at the office."
Her attorney grabbed her arm.
Rachel kept talking.
"Before the ambulance."
Daniel looked at Ortiz.
Ortiz wrote it down.
No one claimed murder.
May you like
Not yet.
But Richard's death, once the fixed point in the story, had become another door nobody was willing to close.
