Chapter 9 - The Missing Toxicology Report
The missing toxicology report had not been lost.
It had been removed.
Hospital archives showed a digital access event two days after Robert's death. The user account belonged to a physician who no longer practiced medicine.
Dr. Warren Pike.
Ethan recognized the name.
"He was Eleanor's doctor."
Detective Brooks found Pike in a retirement community near Galveston.
At first he denied remembering Robert Vance.
Then she showed him the access log.
His hands began to shake.
"I didn't kill anyone."
"Nobody asked if you did," Brooks said.
Pike stared at her.
Then the truth came out.
Robert's blood had contained a sedative not prescribed to him.
Not enough to kill a healthy man.
But enough to dangerously lower blood pressure in someone taking heart medication.
Pike had removed the result after Preston Hale threatened to expose an old insurance fraud investigation against him.
"Who gave Robert the drug?" Ethan demanded over speakerphone.
Pike whispered, "I don't know."
"Who had access?"
"Household staff. Family. Anyone near his evening medication."
Arthur turned pale.
"He took his pills with tea every night. Eleanor brought it to him after dinner."
The room went silent.
Ethan gripped the edge of Sarah's hospital bed.
"So my father suspected her, then died with a sedative in his blood, and her lawyer erased the report."
Sarah took his hand.
"We still need proof."
"We have enough to know I lived with a liar for fifteen years."
Then Detective Brooks received another message.
Eleanor had been arrested at a private airfield thirty miles west of Dallas.
She was carrying a passport, forty thousand dollars in cash, and a hard drive.
On the drive was a folder labeled POST-BIRTH.
Inside were draft court papers seeking emergency guardianship of Ethan's child.
May you like
The named guardian was not Ethan.
It was Eleanor Vance.
