Chapter 4 - FORTY-SEVEN MISSING MINUTES
Detective Nora Hayes searched our home under warrant.
She found broken glass in the basement sink, traces of sedative residue in a tea cup, and blood beneath a stair runner that Marcus had recently replaced.
The blood matched me.
Marcus said he cleaned after finding me injured.
He could not explain why the tea cup had been placed inside a sealed trash bag beneath gardening equipment.
The missing forty-seven minutes remained critical.
Our cameras stored backups through a private security company. Marcus had canceled remote storage three days before my collapse.
He said he was reducing expenses.
Claire obtained the cancellation email.
It originated from Victoria’s laptop.
The hospital authorization beside my bed carried a signature resembling mine.
The document examiner would need the original.
Victoria’s attorney claimed it had disappeared during hospital security handling.
Claire had watched Reed seal it.
Reed’s evidence receipt listed four pages.
The police evidence packet contained three.
One page was missing.
The hospital began an internal review.
I regained enough speech to whisper one or two words at a time.
“Leo?”
“Safe,” Claire said.
“Marcus?”
“Under investigation. Not arrested.”
I closed my eyes.
Claire understood my frustration.
“Evidence has to survive longer than anger.”
Leo gave a child-forensic interview.
He said Marcus ordered him not to visit me alone. Victoria told him I could not hear anything and would die soon.
He had secretly entered my room after reading a message I scheduled before my collapse.
The message said:
If I cannot speak, call Claire Lawson. Do not trust papers Dad asks you to sign.
I remembered creating it.
I did not remember why I had believed danger was so close.
Then Detective Hayes showed me a photograph recovered from Victoria’s apartment.
Marcus stood beside my hospital bed while I was still in the emergency department.
Victoria held the missing fourth page.
The timestamp was four hours before Leo’s call.
May you like
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
First signature failed. Use the witness version.
