Chapter 4 - The Ghost of the Past
The room spun on its axis.
I sank slowly into my chair, staring at the names and dates printed on the bank statements in front of me.
"Clara is alive?" I whispered, my voice shaking for the first time all night. "He... he told me she died of late-stage glioblastoma. He showed me a death certificate!"
"The death certificate was forged by a corrupt coroner in San Diego who was stripped of his license three years ago," Evelyn revealed, dropping a secondary file onto the desk. "Daniel used Clara's alleged 'death' to claim sole guardianship of Sophie when she was seven years old. Then he married you three years later because he needed an established, respected medical professional to give him the image of a perfect family while he climbed the ladder at his law firm."
The sheer scale of Daniel's sociopathy took my breath away.
Every smile, every romantic dinner, every promise he had ever made me during our three years of marriage was a lie. He had constructed an elaborate, terrifying maze of deceit, using a dead wife’s ghost and a helpless child to keep himself untouchable.
"Why did he keep Clara alive?" I asked, horror dawning on me. "If he wanted her gone, why pay thirty thousand dollars a month to keep her in a facility?"
"Because Clara's family trust controls eighty percent of the equity in his law firm," Evelyn explained. "If Clara is proven dead without a body, the trust dissolves and reverts to her distant relatives in Boston. But as long as she is legally 'incapacitated,' Daniel remains the sole trustee of her estate. He needed her alive to keep the money, but legally dead to the world so he could marry you and control Sophie."
My hands shook as I grabbed the desk edge. "We have to get her out."
"I've already contacted the State Department and federal authorities," Evelyn said. "A team of US Marshals and Mexican federal police are en route to the clinic in Tijuana right now. If Clara is mentally coherent and can testify... Daniel won't just go to state prison for child abuse. He’s going to federal prison for kidnapping, fraud, and human trafficking."
Just then, my desk phone buzzed.
"Dr. Douglas," Nurse Sarah’s voice came through the speaker. "Sophie is out of surgery. Dr. Vance successfully repaired the liver laceration and stopped the internal bleeding. She’s being moved to the Pediatric ICU, bed 4. She’s awake, Mara. She’s asking for you."
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I slammed the file shut, stood up, and looked at Evelyn.
"Gather every document," I told my attorney. "I want the indictment ready before Daniel's arraignment at 9:00 AM. I'm going to see my daughter."
