Chapter 12 - THE MAN AT THE DOOR
I found Dad on the kitchen floor.
Alive.
Bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
"He wanted the box," he said.
Papers covered the dining room.
Anna's letter to Lily was missing.
So was the flash drive.
Outside, officers caught Aaron Pike climbing a fence.
The letter was in his jacket.
A K-9 found the flash drive beneath a parked car.
Dad refused an ambulance until I made him sit down.
"I'm fine," he snapped while a paramedic cleaned the cut.
"You have blood on your shirt."
"I've had worse shaving."
Even then, stubborn.
Then his voice softened.
"I should've called you the minute that box arrived."
"You didn't know."
"I knew Michael sounded wrong."
"So did I. For months, probably."
Dad looked toward the scattered pages.
"Grief makes liars look useful."
The sentence stayed with me.
Pike's phone contained photographs of Lily, my house, the hospital, Rosa, Margaret, even Detective Collins.
Evelyn had hired him to watch anyone who could threaten the guardianship plan.
One message mattered most.
ROSS: IF HART GOES DOWN, MICHAEL TALKS. GET THE DRIVE BEFORE COLLINS SEES THE HOSPICE FILE.
Collins searched the flash drive.
A folder appeared:
ANNA - HOSPICE.
Inside were medication logs from Anna's final week.
A nurse had flagged unusual requests for additional sedatives.
My skin went cold.
"Did Evelyn hurt Anna?"
"We don't know that," Collins said firmly.
The records did prove Evelyn tried to increase Anna's medication without approval.
The request was denied.
Another incident note read:
PATIENT STATES MOTHER IS PRESSURING HER TO SIGN LEGAL DOCUMENTS. PATIENT REQUESTS MOTHER NOT BE LEFT ALONE WITH PAPERWORK.
Below it:
MICHAEL REMOVED DOCUMENTS BEFORE SOCIAL WORKER ARRIVED.
I stared at the line.
Michael had not joined Evelyn's plan after Anna died.
May you like
He had been involved while my wife was still alive.
And suddenly I needed to hear him say why.
