Chapter 11
The screen looked like a frozen spiderweb.
But the red recording dot still glowed at the top.
Paused by damage.
Not erased.
Eve handed it to Daniel.
“Make copies.”
Daniel took it gently.
“Already arranging forensic extraction.”
The nurse glanced at Charles.
“Also, there’s a detective from Scottsdale PD asking for Mr. Hartwell.”
Charles looked at Eve.
She looked back without expression.
“Go,” she said.
“I’ll come back.”
“I know.”
He left.
Daniel stayed.
Eve watched the door close behind her father.
Then she looked at Daniel.
“What are you not telling me?”
Daniel folded his hands over the tablet.
He was a careful man.
Not cold.
Careful.
“There are active matters I can’t discuss without compromising—”
“Daniel.”
He stopped.
Eve lowered her voice.
“My husband tried to force me to sign away medical authority over my son. My father knew more than he told me. The woman in my kitchen may have spent years planning to get inside my life. So choose your next sentence like you want me to trust you.”
Daniel nodded once.
“We found evidence Grant was preparing to petition for emergency guardianship of your child immediately after delivery.”
Eve did not move.
The heartbeat monitor did.
Thump-thump-thump.
Her son, unaware that men were already drafting documents around him.
“On what grounds?”
“Postpartum instability. Alleged substance misuse. Financial recklessness. Emotional volatility.”
Eve smiled faintly.
“I don’t drink. I manage two foundations. And I’ve never missed a prenatal appointment.”
“They had supporting records.”
“Forged?”
“Some. Some manufactured through planted reports.”
Eve’s mouth went dry.
“What reports?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then he turned the tablet toward her.
A file opened.
Screenshots.
Emails.
Calendar notes.
A private clinic invoice.
A therapist intake form Eve had never seen.
A pharmacy record for a medication she had never taken.
And a note from someone inside her OB office.
Patient appears anxious, paranoid about spouse, possible delusional financial claims.
Eve read it twice.
Her baby kicked.
She pressed one hand to him.
The seventh mini-payoff.
This was bigger than Grant and Sloane.
Someone at the clinic had helped them.
“Who wrote that?” she asked.
“We’re confirming.”
Eve stared at the name.
Dr. Melissa Vane.
Not her doctor.
But a physician in the same practice.
The woman who had stepped into one appointment while Eve’s regular OB was stuck in surgery.
A woman with soft eyes and a silver cross necklace who had told Eve, “Pregnancy makes everything feel dramatic.”
Eve remembered hating that sentence.
Now she knew why.
“She’s connected to Sloane?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Daniel’s eyebrow lifted slightly.
Not because he objected.
Because in that moment, Eve sounded exactly like her father.
A second knock came.
This time, before anyone answered, the door opened.
Grant’s mother stepped inside.
Margaret Whitaker wore winter-white linen, pearls, and the expression of a woman arriving at a luncheon where the flowers were wrong.
“Eve,” she said.
Daniel stood.
“Mrs. Whitaker, this is not a good time.”
Margaret ignored him.
Her eyes swept over Eve’s face, the monitor belts, the hospital gown, the evidence bag.
Then she sighed.
Not with concern.
With inconvenience.
“I told Grant not to handle it at the house.”
May you like
Eve’s entire body went quiet.
Daniel reached for his phone.
