Chapter 2 - Room 417
I didn’t move.
Christopher tried the key.
The deadbolt stopped him.
“Margaret!”
Veronica clung to me.
I slipped the flash drive into my pocket and called Officer Ramirez.
Christopher began pounding.
“I know you’re in there!”
Ramirez told me patrol officers were on their way.
Christopher’s voice changed.
“Margaret, please. We need to talk.”
I stayed silent.
“I’m trying to protect Veronica.”
My granddaughter shook her head violently.
“No.”
I put my finger to my lips.
Christopher continued.
“Bertha was sick. She wasn’t thinking clearly.”
I stared at the note.
ROOM 417. ST. MATTHEW’S.
My daughter had anticipated this.
She had hidden evidence with her seven-year-old child because she believed she might die.
The realization nearly broke me.
But there would be time to grieve later.
Now I needed to understand why.
Sirens approached.
Christopher walked quickly toward the SUV.
By the time police arrived, he was gone.
Officer Ramirez came himself.
I showed him Bertha’s note and the flash drive.
His expression changed immediately.
“We need to take these as evidence.”
“Make a copy first.”
He hesitated.
“Mrs. Bennett—”
“My daughter died under suspicious circumstances, and her husband tried to force an immediate cremation. Forgive me if I’m careful.”
Ramirez nodded.
At the station, investigators copied the drive.
It contained six folders.
Five were encrypted.
One wasn’t.
Inside was a single video.
Bertha appeared on screen.
Alive.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
“Mom,” she said, “if you’re watching this, Christopher probably told everyone my heart stopped.”
I covered my mouth.
Veronica was with a child-services counselor in another room.
Thank God.
Bertha continued.
“My heart is fine.”
Detective Sarah Collins paused the video.
“Do you want a moment?”
“No.”
She resumed it.
“I found something six weeks ago. Christopher has been moving money through accounts belonging to patients at St. Matthew’s Hospice.”
I stared at the screen.
Christopher was a financial consultant.
St. Matthew’s was a private medical facility where his firm managed several charitable trusts.
Bertha had volunteered there.
“He thinks I only found the money,” Bertha continued. “I found more.”
She glanced behind her.
“I found patient records.”
The video ended.
Nothing else.
Collins leaned back.
“Did your daughter ever mention this?”
“No.”
“St. Matthew’s?”
“Only that she volunteered there.”
I showed her the handwritten note.
Room 417.
We drove there that afternoon.
St. Matthew’s occupied a renovated brick building twenty minutes outside the city.
The administrator, Dr. Elaine Mercer, met us in the lobby.
When Collins asked about Room 417, Mercer went still.
“We don’t have a Room 417.”
Bertha’s note said otherwise.
Collins requested building records.
Mercer reluctantly led us upstairs.
The fourth floor ended at Room 416.
Beside it was a linen closet.
I noticed scratches around the lock.
“Open it.”
Mercer hesitated.
“It’s storage.”
Collins repeated the request.
Inside were shelves of towels.
Nothing else.
Then I saw tracks on the floor.
The shelving unit moved.
Behind it was a narrow door.
Mercer whispered, “I didn’t know.”
Collins opened it.
The room contained a desk, a laptop, filing cabinets and a medical refrigerator.
On the wall were photographs.
Dozens.
Patients.
Beside each photograph was a number.
Dollar amounts.
I felt sick.
Collins called for a warrant team.
Then I saw Bertha.
Her photograph was pinned in the final row.
Beside it:
B.B.
$2,400,000.
And beneath that:
TRANSFER UPON DEATH.
My daughter wasn’t merely investigating Christopher.
Someone had placed a financial value on her death.
The police seized everything.
Christopher disappeared.
His attorney claimed he was overwhelmed by grief.
The autopsy was ordered that evening.
Forty-eight hours later, the medical examiner called me.
Bertha had not died from heart failure.
There were signs consistent with asphyxia.
And something else.
A drug had been detected in her blood.
A powerful sedative.
Christopher’s fingerprints were found on medication packaging recovered from Room 417.
The police issued a warrant for his arrest.
But he remained missing.
Then Detective Collins called.
“We opened another encrypted folder.”
“What was inside?”
“Insurance documents.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“Two-point-four million.”
The exact amount written beside Bertha’s photograph.
“Christopher was the beneficiary?”
Collins was silent.
“Detective?”
“No.”
I gripped the phone.
“Then who?”
“The policy was changed fourteen days before your daughter died.”
“To whom?”
Collins inhaled slowly.
“Margaret, the beneficiary listed on Bertha’s policy was Veronica.”
That made no sense.
Unless—
My blood turned cold.
If Christopher couldn’t access Bertha’s money after her death, there was only one person standing between him and the inheritance.
Veronica.
I ran upstairs.
Her bedroom was empty.
The window was open.
May you like
And lying on her pillow was a note written in Christopher’s handwriting:
BRING THE FLASH DRIVE ALONE IF YOU WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN.
