Chapter 5 - The Experts
Grant had hired fourteen specialists in eleven months.
Child psychiatrists.
Trauma therapists.
Neurologists.
Behavioral consultants.
Every one of them had documented Avery's rage.
None had asked what happened before the rage.
Nolan read the reports.
Avery refuses transitions.
Avery exhibits oppositional behavior.
Avery becomes dysregulated when discussing her mother.
One report recommended residential treatment.
Nolan put the folder down.
"She isn't a problem to solve."
Grant's face tightened.
"I was trying to help."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yeah."
Nolan looked at Avery's bedroom door.
"You were paying people to make the screaming stop."
"You weren't asking what the screaming was saying."
Grant had no answer.
Dr. Serena Price, Avery's newest therapist, agreed to start over.
No forced eye contact.
No surprise touch.
No restraint unless immediate safety required it.
Avery responded.
Slowly.
She told Serena the night Catherine died smelled like rain and fireplace smoke.
She remembered Darius arguing with Catherine.
She remembered another man in the library.
A man with a red tie.
Grant knew him.
Howard Kell.
Family attorney.
Kell had supervised Catherine's estate.
He also drafted the trust giving Darius temporary voting authority over Catherine's charitable assets.
Nolan asked.
"How much?"
Grant answered.
"About one hundred and twenty million."
There it was.
Money.
But Avery added something stranger.
"Mommy said it wasn't about money."
"What was it about?"
"Boxes."
"What boxes?"
Avery looked at Nolan.
"The ones with sick kids' names."
Grant's face changed.
Catherine had run a medical charity.
May you like
And suddenly the secret reached beyond one family.
