Chapter 2 - The Woman Holding My Medication
Detective Laura Bennett placed three photographs across my hospital blanket.
The first showed Jason walking through our driveway forty-three minutes after his parents’ hired car had supposedly taken him to the airport.
He wore the same navy coat he had kissed me goodbye in.
His suitcase was gone.
But my prescription bag was tucked beneath his arm.
The second photograph showed him standing beside a silver sedan parked two blocks from our house.
A woman waited beside the passenger door.
She looked to be in her late thirties, with dark red hair pulled into a low knot and a pale medical mask covering the bottom half of her face.
Jason handed her my medication.
She opened the bag.
Checked the labels.
Then hugged him.
The third photograph showed her removing the mask.
I knew her.
Dr. Evelyn Cross.
The immunologist who had treated me for nearly a year.
For several seconds, I could not understand what I was seeing.
“That’s my doctor,” I whispered.
Detective Bennett pulled a chair closer.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Cross had diagnosed my autoimmune disorder after months of joint pain, fever, weakness, and unexplained inflammation.
She was the person who told me my immune system was attacking my body.
She prescribed the medication Jason had taken.
She also recommended that I stop working, avoid stress, and allow my husband to oversee my care until I stabilized.
Jason loved that part.
He began attending every appointment.
He answered questions before I could.
He kept notes.
Managed refills.
Spoke to the insurance company.
I thought he was helping me.
Now I remembered something I had dismissed.
At my last appointment, Dr. Cross asked Jason to remain in the office after I left for blood work.
When I returned, they stopped talking.
“What did she do with the medication?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Have you questioned her?”
“She did not report to her clinic this morning.”
My pulse quickened.
“What about Jason?”
“His phone is off. Airline records show that he, his parents, and his sister never boarded the flight to Paris.”
“But they left with luggage.”
“They checked in online, then canceled the tickets after passing through the airport entrance.”
“Where did they go?”
“We’re determining that.”
The detective opened a folder.
The utility companies confirmed that water, electricity, internet, and cellular signal amplification had been scheduled for disconnection five days earlier.
The requests came from Jason’s account.
A locksmith installed exterior deadbolts the night before the trip.
He was told the property would remain vacant during renovations.
The windows had been secured with screws purchased on Jason’s credit card.
None of it was accidental.
“He meant for me to die,” I said.
Detective Bennett did not rush to reassure me.
“We are investigating attempted homicide.”
Hearing the legal phrase made the room tilt.
My husband had stood beside my hospital bed three months earlier and cried when Dr. Cross gave me the diagnosis.
He held my hand.
Promised I would not face it alone.
Then he removed the medicine keeping me stable and sealed me inside our house.
“Why seventy-four days?” Bennett asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s unusually specific.”
Jason had said it casually.
Only seventy-four days.
As though he were discussing a long vacation instead of leaving a sick woman without care.
“Did anything important happen seventy-four days from the date he left?”
I counted mentally.
My birthday fell sixty-nine days later.
Our wedding anniversary was after eighty-one.
Then I remembered.
“My trust review.”
“What trust?”
“My grandmother left me property and investments. Every five years, the trustees conduct a beneficiary review. The next one is scheduled in seventy-two days.”
“What happens during the review?”
“I confirm my legal competence and update the succession instructions.”
“And if you are unable to attend?”
“The review can be postponed.”
“What if you die?”
I stared at her.
“Jason receives temporary income rights from part of the trust.”
“How much?”
“Approximately $320,000 a year.”
“For how long?”
“Until a final beneficiary is confirmed.”
“Who is the final beneficiary?”
“My younger sister, Ava.”
Bennett wrote it down.
“Where is she?”
“Australia. We haven’t spoken in almost two years.”
“Why?”
“Jason said she tried to borrow money from the trust. He showed me emails where she insulted me after I refused.”
“Did you speak to her directly?”
“No.”
The answer tasted bitter.
I had trusted screenshots.
Trusted Jason’s interpretation.
Trusted the man who now stood in a photograph handing my medicine to my doctor.
A nurse entered to check my blood pressure.
The numbers were dangerously high.
Bennett waited until she left.
“Your husband may have expected your death to trigger financial access.”
“Then why seventy-four days instead of just killing me immediately?”
“Perhaps he needed your condition to appear natural.”
The autoimmune disorder.
The missing medication.
The locked house.
If no one heard my emergency call, I might have died from complications that looked like a severe flare.
Jason could claim he believed I had care arrangements.
He could say I refused help.
Dr. Cross could support the medical explanation.
My death would become tragedy.
Not crime.
“Why did she take the medication?” I asked.
Bennett looked at the photograph.
“Possibly to prevent investigators from finding it in his possession.”
“Or to give it to someone else.”
“What makes you think that?”
I remembered Dr. Cross’s hands.
They trembled slightly during several appointments.
Once, I noticed swelling along her knuckles.
She said it came from typing.
“What if she’s sick?”
Bennett’s expression changed.
“You think your medication was intended for her?”
“I don’t know.”
The prescriptions were highly specialized and expensive.
My insurance covered most of the cost because Dr. Cross submitted extensive diagnostic evidence.
If the diagnosis was false, she could have used my prescriptions for herself.
Or sold them.
But that still did not explain why my body had become so weak.
Unless the medication was not helping.
Unless it was causing the illness.
The possibility frightened me more than the photograph.
“Can you request a second medical review?” I asked.
“The hospital already has.”
A new rheumatologist, Dr. Priya Shah, entered that afternoon.
She carried my laboratory records.
Her face was professional but troubled.
“I reviewed your prior testing.”
“Do I have the disease Dr. Cross diagnosed?”
“Some of your symptoms are consistent with autoimmune illness.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
She sat beside the bed.
“The antibody pattern in your current blood does not match the results in Dr. Cross’s records.”
“What does that mean?”
“It may mean the prior samples were contaminated, mislabeled, or not yours.”
My mouth became dry.
“Then what made me sick?”
“We are testing for medication toxicity.”
Dr. Shah explained that one of my prescribed drugs could cause muscle weakness, dizziness, gastrointestinal distress, and immune suppression if given at excessive levels.
My recorded dosage was unusually high.
Another medication had been listed under a brand name I recognized.
But pharmacy records showed that Dr. Cross requested a compounded version.
The compounded pills might contain something different.
“Could someone make a healthy person appear chronically ill?” I asked.
Dr. Shah paused.
“With enough time and the wrong medications, yes.”
Jason had prepared my tea every morning.
Managed every pill.
Praised me for following the schedule.
Whenever I felt worse, he said the disease was progressing.
Whenever I questioned the medicine, he called Dr. Cross.
She increased it.
My illness might not have been the obstacle to their plan.
It might have been the plan.
That evening, Detective Bennett returned with more news.
Police searched Dr. Cross’s office.
Her computer had been removed.
Patient files were missing.
But investigators found a locked refrigerator containing blood samples.
One carried my name.
The DNA did not match me.
It matched Dr. Evelyn Cross.
She had used her own blood to create my diagnosis.
Then she prescribed medication under my insurance and collected it through Jason.
I closed my eyes.
“They stole my identity to treat her.”
“Partly.”
“What does that mean?”
Bennett placed another file on the table.
Dr. Cross had not used all the medication.
Some prescriptions were resold through a private network.
Insurance records showed more than $480,000 in drugs dispensed under my name over fourteen months.
I had received only a fraction.
Jason and Cross divided the proceeds.
But the network connected to something larger.
One of the payment accounts belonged to Harrowgate Renewal Center, a private residential facility in Wisconsin.
The facility specialized in caring for wealthy patients with neurological and psychiatric conditions.
According to its records, I had already been admitted.
Not physically.
On paper.
My file claimed I suffered from severe autoimmune encephalitis, paranoia, and impaired judgment.
Jason was listed as my medical guardian.
Dr. Cross had signed the diagnosis.
And admission was scheduled for the day after my trust review.
They had prepared two possible endings.
If I died, Jason received income from the trust.
If I survived, they would declare me incompetent and place me inside a facility they controlled.
Either way, my legal voice disappeared.
Then Bennett showed me the final document recovered from the center.
A room had already been assigned.
Room 612.
The current patient living there was registered under my name.
The photograph attached to the file showed another woman.
She looked directly into the camera.
Underneath the image, someone had written:
Patient believes she is Ava Mercer. Do not allow outside contact.
Ava was my sister.
Jason had told me she was living in Australia.
May you like
But according to Harrowgate’s records, she had been locked inside Room 612 for eighteen months.
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