Chapter 4 - AN UNFIT MOTHER
Clara tried Elena twelve times. No answer. Detective Vega sent a patrol car to the mansion, but by the time officers arrived, Elena had appeared at the front door with Rosie's stuffed rabbit in her arms. She said someone had followed her through the service hallway, though she couldn't identify him.
At 7:40 the next morning, a process server met Clara outside Rosie's hospital room.
Beatrice had filed an emergency petition alleging Clara was impaired by grief and medication, requesting temporary guardianship of Rosie and control over the child's trust distributions. Attached was a statement from a supposed family physician Clara had never met.
Clara sank into a chair. “She tried to hurt my daughter, and now she's calling me dangerous.”
A nurse gently shut the door so Rosie wouldn't hear.
“You need your own lawyer,” Detective Vega said when Clara called. “And do not sign anything Miles puts in front of you.”
Clara contacted Nora Whitcomb, a family-law attorney Daniel once trusted. Nora arrived in a navy suit carrying a legal pad and no false reassurances.
“Beatrice doesn't get custody just because she wants your money,” Nora said. “But this affidavit is serious. We'll challenge it, and we'll verify who wrote it.”
Nora scanned the physician's signature. Her expression changed.
“What?” Clara asked.
“This doctor surrendered his Texas medical license two years ago.”
“How did his name end up here?”
“Someone counted on you being too frightened to check.”
Nora asked for the original trust agreement. Clara admitted Miles had kept the only accessible copy in his office, claiming the records were being digitized.
“Your father was careful,” Nora said. “If he protected your daughter, he put it somewhere Beatrice couldn't rewrite.”
Clara looked at Daniel's wedding ring, which she wore on a chain beneath her shirt.
Before he died, he'd told her, If anything happens to me, don't trust the people who tell you the papers are gone.
She had thought he was talking about his will.
May you like
Now she wasn't so sure.
