Chapter 3 - The Doctor Who Signed the False Report
Dominic came to my mother's house without a convoy. He arrived in a gray sedan driven by a woman named Sofia Alvarez, a former federal investigator who now ran compliance for his legitimate companies.
Ruth met him on the porch with her arms folded. “If my daughter gets hurt because of you, money won't fix it.”
“I know,” he said.
It was the right answer. It didn't make him safe, but it made him human.
Sofia brought us copies of the hospital records Dominic had authorized her to obtain. Four years of episodes, four years of prescriptions, four years of notes from Dr. Adrian Voss. The reports described a progressive seizure disorder, yet the testing was strangely inconsistent. Several purported lab results had no matching laboratory accession numbers. One date placed Dominic at an appointment while his passport showed him in Montreal.
“The hospital is reviewing these,” Sofia said. “We shouldn't jump to conclusions.”
Dominic stared at the forged-looking page. “I built my life around what this doctor told me.”
“And who recommended him?” I asked.
“Mercer.”
Silence.
We went to a different medical center, where an independent neurologist reviewed his history and ordered appropriate testing. She was careful not to promise answers. Flashing lights can trigger seizures in some people, she explained, but his symptoms needed a full evaluation. There were also questions about the medication bottles he'd been given. Dominic authorized toxicology testing and turned over his remaining pills for analysis.
That evening, Sofia received a call from a frightened pharmacy technician. Someone had been collecting Dominic's prescriptions under an authorization that did not appear in his signed paperwork.
The technician agreed to speak to investigators, then stopped answering her phone.
I was standing in Dominic's kitchen when he heard the news. He pressed both hands to the counter and shut his eyes.
“I've spent four years thinking I was losing control of my own body,” he said. “Every time it happened, Mercer was there afterward, telling me I couldn't trust myself.”
“That's what someone does when they want you dependent,” I said.
He turned toward me. “And you know that how?”
“My father died when I was twenty-two. The insurance company said he'd ignored safety rules. I spent years thinking he'd been careless. That's a different kind of poison.”
Dominic looked at me for a long moment. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't apologize for a thing you haven't done. Help me learn what happened.”
The next morning, the pharmacy technician was found alive at her sister's home. She'd fled after receiving threats. Her statement revealed a courier service that collected medications from Dr. Voss's private office. The courier company was registered to a holding firm tied to Mercer's brother-in-law.
At noon, police served a warrant at the office. Voss was gone. His desk had been cleared. But his assistant had preserved an email archive and turned it over to investigators.
One message carried the subject line: SUBJECT 17—CONTINUE NIGHT PROTOCOL.
Another mentioned an insurance trust that would shift voting control of Dominic's companies if he was certified permanently incapacitated.
“Subject seventeen,” I whispered, remembering my father's notebook.
Dominic asked me what was wrong. I showed him the drawing and the number.
He studied it. “Your father was looking at the same system.”
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed with a video message.
The screen showed a storage unit, a metal chair, and a man wearing a surgical mask. He held up my father's battered tool belt.
A voice said, “Come alone if you want the rest of Daniel Hodge's story.”
Dominic reached for my phone, but I stepped away.
“No,” I said. “This time I choose what happens next.”
He nodded once. “Then tell me your plan.”
I looked at the video again. In the background, behind the masked man, I recognized the red warning placard on a high-voltage switchboard.
May you like
I had installed that placard myself two months earlier.
The storage unit was inside Dominic's own warehouse.
