Chapter 5 - THE DOCTOR'S LIE
Dr. Nathan Cole had treated Evelyn for fourteen years.
He denied writing the competency report.
At first.
Rebecca confronted him in his office with a certified copy bearing his digital signature.
Cole's hands began shaking.
He admitted Daniel had approached him five months earlier.
Daniel claimed Evelyn was forgetting meetings, repeating conversations, and giving money impulsively to strangers.
Cole had agreed to perform a preliminary cognitive screening.
"But this isn't the report I wrote," he insisted.
He showed Rebecca his archived version.
The original said Evelyn demonstrated no clinically significant cognitive decline.
The court version said the opposite.
Someone had altered it.
Daniel had not simply bribed Cole.
He had taken a legitimate medical document and weaponized it.
Rebecca asked who had access.
Cole hesitated.
His office administrator.
Two nurses.
And a consultant who had recently installed their document-management software.
The consultant company was Vale Systems.
Thomas's company.
By evening, Rebecca had enough to challenge the conservatorship petition.
But Daniel anticipated that.
His attorney, Marcus Hale, argued that document tampering did not prove Evelyn was competent.
He requested an independent evaluation.
The judge agreed.
Daniel appeared disappointed.
Evelyn knew better.
He wanted the delay.
Every day the case remained unresolved damaged confidence in Mercer Urban Holdings.
Banks started asking questions.
A major lender postponed a refinancing package.
Board members privately wondered whether Evelyn should temporarily step away.
Daniel had attacked her wealth without touching the accounts.
He was attacking belief.
Maya became another target.
Health inspectors arrived at her food truck after anonymous complaints of refrigeration violations.
Then someone posted online that Maya had manipulated an elderly billionaire for money.
Her lunchtime line disappeared.
She nearly closed the truck.
Evelyn offered financial help.
Maya refused.
"If I take your money now, Daniel gets exactly the story he wants."
That answer made Evelyn trust her more.
That night, Maya cleaned the truck alone.
She pulled a damaged storage unit from beneath the security console.
The system had two memory components.
The cloud files were gone.
The main drive had been wiped.
But Maya remembered something the installer once told her.
A diagnostic backup cached short clips when the network connection failed.
She removed the small internal card.
Her laptop recognized it.
One video remained.
Only eleven seconds.
Rain.
Evelyn falling.
Daniel's shoe kicking something across the pavement.
Not enough to show the entire attack.
But enough to destroy his claim that he never touched the injector.
Maya called Evelyn.
Before Evelyn answered, the lights inside the truck went out.
A shadow appeared outside the service window.
May you like
Then someone locked the truck doors from the outside.
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