Chapter 4 - The Nurse Who Never Quit
They met Elena Ruiz in the back booth of a twenty-four-hour diner forty minutes outside Chicago.
She looked exhausted. Her hair was hidden under a baseball cap, and she checked the windows every few seconds.
"I didn't quit," she said.
Richard sat across from her. "Sophia told me you left without notice."
"She fired me. Then she paid the staffing agency to say I resigned."
Ethan leaned forward. "Why?"
Elena opened her tote bag and removed a pharmacy bottle.
Richard recognized the label.
His name.
"These aren't the pills your cardiologist prescribed," Elena said. "I noticed you were sleeping fourteen hours some days. You were confused after breakfast. Your hands shook."
Richard remembered all of it.
He had blamed age.
Sophia had blamed age louder.
Elena slid a lab report across the table.
"I took one tablet to an independent lab before I was fired. It contains a sedative that was never on your chart."
Ethan stared at the paper.
"Who had access to his medication?"
Elena looked at him.
"Your wife."
Richard's jaw tightened.
"Why didn't you call me?"
"I tried. Your phone was suddenly blocking my number."
Ethan rubbed both hands over his face.
Elena reached into her bag again.
"There is more."
She produced copies of medical notes Richard had never seen.
Agitation.
Memory loss.
Paranoid accusations toward daughter-in-law.
Risk of aggression.
Each note carried the signature of Dr. Malcolm Crane, a private physician Sophia had recommended.
Richard had met Crane exactly twice.
"He never examined me for any of this," Richard said.
Elena nodded. "I know."
Ethan whispered, "This is a competency file."
"Yes."
Richard felt the pieces lock together.
The staged assault.
The medication.
The board meeting.
Sophia did not want him hated.
She wanted him legally powerless.
Then Elena placed one final paper on the table.
It was a copy of a durable power of attorney.
Richard's signature sat at the bottom.
Beside it was Ethan's name as successor decision-maker.
But Ethan wasn't the only name.
Under his was Sophia Whitmore.
May you like
Richard looked at the signature again.
"That's not mine."
