Chapter 3 - A Signature She Forgot
Mara spent the next morning proving she was sane to people who had never met her.
A psychiatrist named Dr. Patel sat near the window and asked questions in a voice so calm it made Mara furious.
“Have you ever wanted to die?”
“No.”
“Have you ever felt your baby would be better off without you?”
“No.”
“Have you experienced mood swings?”
“I’m eight months pregnant. I cried because a sandwich shop ran out of pickles.”
Dr. Patel almost smiled.
Mara did not.
Daniel had brought records. Therapy bills from two years earlier after Mara’s father died. A prescription for sleeping pills she had taken for nine days. A text she sent her sister during a fight with Daniel: I can’t live like this.
Not I can’t live.
I can’t live like this.
It looked bad anyway.
That was another mistake Mara had made: she had deleted Daniel’s reply to that message because it hurt to look at it.
His reply had been: Then leave. See how far you get without me.
Gone now.
Teresa was in surgery with a broken hip and three cracked ribs. Luis had given police a statement, but he had not seen Daniel cut the curtain. He had only arrived after the fall.
Detective Owen Hale came to Mara’s room at noon.
“Your husband says the railing had been loose for weeks.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Your mother-in-law says you were upset about the inheritance.”
Mara frowned. “What inheritance?”
Hale watched her for a beat too long.
“You don’t know?”
Daniel walked into the room carrying coffee.
“Hale, she needs rest.”
The detective looked at him. “I was asking your wife.”
Daniel set the coffee down.
Mara said, “Ask me.”
Hale opened a notebook. “Your late father-in-law’s trust was amended last year. If Daniel has a biological child, voting control of Cross Meridian passes into a custodial trust for that child at birth.”
Mara stared at him.
Daniel went still.
Hale continued. “Until the child turns twenty-five, an outside trustee controls the shares.”
“What outside trustee?” Mara asked.
Daniel spoke first. “It doesn’t matter.”
Hale glanced at him. “Actually, it does.”
Mara looked at Daniel. “You knew.”
He rubbed his mouth.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When things settled.”
“Things were never settled.”
Silence.
Then Mara remembered something.
Three weeks earlier, Daniel had asked whether the baby could be legally listed under Mara’s maiden name “for privacy.” At the time, she had called it ridiculous.
Now her stomach tightened.
Detective Hale leaned closer. “Mrs. Cross, do you have somewhere safe to go if the hospital releases you?”
Before Mara could answer, Daniel’s phone buzzed on the table.
The screen lit up.
A message from Evelyn.
DID SHE TELL THEM ABOUT THE BLUE ROOM?
Daniel grabbed the phone.
May you like
Too late.
