Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN RED
The blonde woman’s name was Lauren Pierce.
Madison learned that in a federal building at 1:40 in the morning.
Investigator Naomi Kerr placed a photograph on the conference table.
Lauren looked older than she had six years ago. Still blonde. Same eyes.
No red dress.
Madison stared.
“She was not David’s lover?”
Naomi looked at David.
He answered.
“No.”
Madison felt anger rise so fast she nearly stood.
“Then what was she?”
“Compliance investigator.”
“For who?”
“St. Catherine.”
Madison laughed.
The sound came out sharp.
“So six years ago I destroyed my marriage over a compliance
investigator.”
David looked down.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You destroyed it.”
“Yes.”
Naomi let the silence sit.
Good investigator.
She understood that some facts need room to hurt.
Madison turned toward David.
“What was she doing in our bedroom?”
“She was injured.”
“By who?”
“We didn’t know then.”
“Why were you holding her?”
“She had been followed from the hospital. Someone hit her car. She was
shaking.”
Madison looked at Naomi.
“You believe this?”
“I have records supporting that Lauren Pierce filed an internal
complaint three days earlier and reported a suspicious vehicle the night
of your separation.”
Madison looked back at David.
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He hesitated.
Madison’s voice hardened.
“Do not tell me yet if the answer is going to be another decision you
made for me.”
David looked at her.
“It is.”
She closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
Naomi opened a second file.
“We’re going to stay with evidence.”
Madison appreciated that.
The file contained hospital records under her name.
Three admissions she never had. Five prescriptions she never took. One
neurological exam she did not remember. One psychiatric evaluation.
Madison read the conclusion.
PATIENT DEMONSTRATES EPISODIC DISSOCIATION AND IMPAIRED FINANCIAL
JUDGMENT FOLLOWING MARITAL DISTRESS.
Her hands went cold.
Marital distress.
The timing was deliberate.
She looked at David.
“You knew this existed six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You saw it before I walked into that bedroom?”
“Yes.”
That was the first major piece.
Not the whole answer.
Just enough to make the old betrayal unstable.
Naomi continued.
“The physician was Dr. Charles Wynn. Chief Medical Officer at
St. Catherine.”
Madison knew the name.
Everyone in Parker Meridian knew it.
“What does any of this have to do with David?”
“We don’t know yet.”
David said, “I know part.”
Madison turned.
He took a breath.
“Lauren found duplicate patient files.”
“Duplicate?”
“Same identities. Different bodies.”
Madison frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
“Not good enough.”
David nodded.
“Fair.”
Naomi slid one more document across the table.
This was not medical.
Family trust.
Madison recognized the Parker Meridian voting trust established by her
grandfather.
She had read it years ago.
Or thought she had.
Naomi pointed to a clause near the back.
“If a beneficiary is medically incapacitated before control maturity,
temporary voting authority transfers to the continuity committee.”
Madison stared.
“When does my control mature?”
Naomi looked at her.
“Your thirty-fifth birthday.”
Madison’s birthday was eleven months away.
She sat back slowly.
Then David said the sentence he had been avoiding all night.
“That medical file wasn’t created to treat you.”
Madison looked at him.
“It was created so somebody could someday prove you weren’t fit to
control the company.”
Naomi raised one finger.
“Possible.”
David nodded.
“Possible.”
Good.
Evidence first.
Madison looked down at the psychiatric evaluation.
Then at the family trust.
Then at the date.
Six years ago.
The week David made her hate him.
And at the bottom of the medical file, beneath Dr. Wynn’s signature, was
an authorization line.
Jonathan Parker.
May you like
Madison’s father.
Her dead father had approved access to the record.
