Chapter 10 - The Fake Doctor
I clamped my hand aggressively over my mouth, biting my own flesh to stop myself from screaming out loud. The daily pills. The complete isolation. The fake, implanted memories of a car crash. Arthur wasn't my loving, devoted husband protecting me from insanity. He was a ruthless, highly intelligent, sociopathic con artist. He was actively drugging me to induce the exact chemical symptoms of severe mental illness so he could legally steal my entire inheritance the exact moment I turned thirty—which was exactly three weeks away. I grabbed my phone and quickly, with shaking hands that threatened to drop the device, took clear, high-resolution photos of every single document, every stalker photograph on the wall, the bank statements, and the conservatorship paperwork. I carefully, meticulously placed everything exactly as I found it, wiped down the fingerprint scanner with my sleeve to remove any trace of the tape, and pushed the heavy bookcase back into its original place. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely dial my phone to access the internet. I sat on the floor of the study and searched the web for Dr. Elias Thorne. I found his clinic's slick, expensive website, but when I dug deeper into state medical licensing board public records, the truth became even darker. Dr. Thorne had permanently lost his medical license five years ago for severe malpractice, unethical human testing, and accepting massive bribes. He wasn't treating me; Arthur was paying him a fortune to forge a massive, detailed, ironclad medical history of my "insanity." The car accident trauma was a completely fabricated lie designed specifically to explain away the severe brain fog the antipsychotic pills were causing. I was trapped in a highly orchestrated, multi-million-dollar psychological prison, married to a man who had engineered the total erasure of my very identity. If I confronted him now, he would just call his pet doctor, declare me completely unhinged and paranoid, and lock me in a psychiatric ward permanently, taking my fortune. I couldn't just run. He would find me. I needed a flawless plan. I needed to play the long game.
