Chapter 5 - My Father's Signature
Aaron Pike agreed to testify under protection.
We met in a secure conference room.
He was seventy-four.
Thin.
Gray.
His hands shook before he even sat down.
I hated him instantly.
Then I hated myself for wanting immediate answers from an old man who looked terrified of his own memory.
Rachel began.
"Tell Ana what happened."
Pike swallowed.
"Elena came to me three times."
"For what?"
"Insomnia."
"Anxiety."
"Fear."
"Of Lucy?"
"At first."
"Then of Jonathan."
My stomach turned.
Pike said my father began attending appointments with my mother.
He answered questions for her.
Corrected her.
Minimized things.
Then Jonathan asked Pike to prescribe stronger sedatives.
"Why?"
"He said Elena wasn't sleeping."
"Did she want them?"
"No."
I stared at Pike.
"And you prescribed them anyway."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He looked down.
"Money."
At least he did not call it compassion.
Pike admitted Jonathan paid him cash.
Lucy later paid more.
The forged psychiatric report came after Elena threatened divorce.
My father wanted custody of me.
Lucy wanted Elena discredited.
They worked together.
The word together broke something in me.
"Did they kill her?"
Pike's eyes filled.
"I don't know."
"That's not good enough."
"I know."
He explained the night Elena died.
Jonathan called him before midnight.
He said Elena had taken too many pills.
When Pike arrived, she was unconscious but breathing.
He told Jonathan to call an ambulance.
Lucy refused.
"Why?"
"She said scandal would destroy the foundation."
My nails dug into my palms.
"What did Dad do?"
Pike whispered.
"Nothing."
Nothing.
That was fifth slap.
The man I had spent years defending had watched.
Pike finally called emergency services himself.
By the time they arrived, Elena was dead.
Then Jonathan offered him money to alter the toxicology documentation.
Pike accepted.
"What did the real test show?"
He looked at Rachel.
Then at me.
"Her blood alcohol was low."
"The medication level was high."
"But there was another substance."
"What?"
"Digoxin."
I frowned.
My mother had no heart condition.
"Why would she have digoxin?"
"She wouldn't."
Rachel leaned forward.
"Could it have killed her?"
"Yes."
Pike had hidden the result.
Jonathan paid him.
Lucy arranged the final paperwork.
I stood.
The room swayed.
I walked outside.
Miriam followed.
"Do not tell me he loved me."
I said it before she could speak.
"I wasn't going to."
"Everyone always says that."
"Your father loved you."
"Your father was scared."
"Your father was manipulated."
"Your father made mistakes."
I turned.
"He paid a doctor to lie about my mother's death."
Miriam nodded.
"Yes."
That honesty kept me from screaming.
Then she gave me something worse.
A copy of my father's bank record.
The payment to Pike came from a private account.
But two days before my mother's death, there was another payment.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Recipient.
LUCY B. CONSULTING.
Memo.
E.C. RESOLUTION.
E.C.
Elena Carter.
Resolution.
My father had paid Lucy two days before my mother died.
May you like
And nobody could yet tell me what he had paid her to resolve.
