Chapter 5 - The Red Room
Daniel wanted to call Ruiz immediately.
Madeline wanted answers first.
The Voss lake house sat two hours north, surrounded by pine trees and the kind of silence rich people paid for. Madeline hadn't been there in almost a year. Preston said he hated the place after his father died.
At sunrise, she left Poppy with Daniel and drove north alone.
It was reckless.
She knew that.
But fear had burned through caution.
The house smelled closed up and cold. Dust lay on the dining table. The framed family photographs were exactly where they'd always been.
The red room was upstairs at the end of the hall.
It had once been Preston's father's office. The walls were dark burgundy, almost brown in the morning light.
Madeline tried the handle.
Locked.
She found the spare key taped under the bottom drawer of the hallway console, where Preston's father used to hide it.
Inside, the office looked stripped clean except for a desk, filing cabinet, and old leather chair.
Madeline opened drawers.
Tax records. Property deeds. Insurance paperwork.
Then she found a folder with her name on it.
MADELINE VOSS - CAPACITY.
Her throat tightened.
Inside were printed emails between Preston and a private neurologist she'd never met.
Memory lapses.
Mood instability.
Paranoia.
Unsafe behavior around minor child.
All described as if they were established facts.
At the bottom was a draft petition seeking temporary control of her medical and financial decisions.
The filing date was next Monday.
Madeline's knees weakened.
For months Preston had told her she was forgetting things.
Keys she didn't remember losing.
Appointments she supposedly missed.
Arguments she couldn't recall starting.
What if those weren't signs she was sick?
What if someone had been making her sick?
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Madeline spun around.
Nobody was there.
May you like
Then the office door slammed shut.
The lock clicked from the outside.
