Chapter 10 - UNIT 804
I stared at the blank screen of my phone, the morning sunlight suddenly feeling cold.
Medical equipment from the hospice center.
My mother had spent her final month at the Oakwood Palliative Care Facility. William had insisted on paying for the absolute best private suite. He had managed all her care, all her medications.
I gently untangled myself from Grace, making sure the quilt was securely tucked around her.
I walked over to Arthur.
“I have to go somewhere,” I said quietly. “Can you watch Grace until I get back?”
Arthur frowned, seeing the terror in my eyes. “Laura, what’s wrong? The police have William. It’s over.”
“I don’t think it is,” I whispered.
I grabbed my keys and drove to the South Loop storage facility. The metal gates were open for the morning shift. I found Unit 804 on the second floor. The padlock had been cut, hanging loose on the latch. Vance had been here.
I rolled up the heavy metal door.
The unit was packed to the ceiling with cardboard boxes. I ripped open the nearest one.
Inside were IV bags, sealed syringes, and heavily padded medical files.
I pulled out a file. It bore the logo of Oakwood Palliative Care.
It was my mother’s patient chart.
I flipped through the pages. Most of it was standard daily logs—blood pressure, heart rate, pain levels.
But then I found the medication authorization forms.
For the last three weeks of her life, my mother had been prescribed a highly experimental, unapproved painkiller. The signature authorizing the treatment wasn't my mother’s.
It was William’s.
He had medical power of attorney.
Attached to the form was a massive invoice. The drug cost fifty thousand dollars a week.
I kept digging through the box. I found a second file. A financial ledger from the hospice center itself.
William wasn't just paying for the drugs.
He owned the pharmaceutical shell company supplying them.
He had used company money to buy the drugs from himself, testing them on my dying mother to falsify clinical trial data so he could sell the patent to a massive healthcare conglomerate.
He hadn't just stolen her money. He had used her as a human lab rat.
A wave of bile rose in my throat. I staggered backward out of the unit, leaning against the cold concrete wall.
“You shouldn't have come here, Laura.”
I spun around.
May you like
Standing at the end of the hallway was Agent Sterling.
But he wasn't wearing his FBI badge anymore. He was holding a silenced pistol, aimed directly at my chest.
