Chapter 2 - The Hospital Report
I wanted answers immediately.
Maya needed a doctor more.
The pediatrician met us through a private entrance at St. Anne’s Children’s Center.
Noah was examined first.
He was exhausted and dehydrated, but otherwise stable.
Then Maya sat on the examination table.
When the nurse asked her to lift her shirt, my daughter looked at me.
“Do I have to?”
“Only if you’re comfortable.”
The pediatrician, Dr. Elaine Foster, crouched beside her.
“I just want to make sure your back is okay.”
Maya nodded.
Slowly, she lifted the fabric.
I had to turn away for one second.
Red pressure marks crossed both shoulders.
There was bruising along her lower back.
Small healing marks covered her knees.
Dr. Foster’s voice became gentler.
“How long have your knees hurt?”
Maya stared at the floor.
“A while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you fall?”
Maya hesitated.
“She made me scrub the floor.”
“With a mop?”
“My hands.”
I closed my eyes.
Dr. Foster looked at me.
Her expression was professionally controlled.
But she was furious.
“How often?”
Maya whispered.
“Whenever I was bad.”
“What made you bad?”
“Talking.”
My chest hurt.
“What else?”
“Leaving toys out.”
“Being slow.”
“Crying when Noah cried.”
“Getting a B.”
Dr. Foster stopped writing.
“A B?”
Maya nodded.
“She said Dad pays too much for school for me to be stupid.”
I turned toward the window because I did not want Maya to see what those words did to me.
For the last month, Isabella had texted me almost daily.
Maya is doing great.
Maya is becoming so responsible.
Maya loves helping with Noah.
I had believed her.
Because I was traveling.
Because I was negotiating the acquisition.
Because I thought marrying someone who claimed to love my daughter meant I did not have to examine every ordinary day.
That failure belonged to me.
Isabella had committed the cruelty.
But I had created the absence in which she hid it.
Dr. Foster ordered blood work.
The results came back after midnight.
Maya was mildly anemic.
She had lost almost seven pounds in five weeks.
At nine years old, that mattered.
Then came the result that made Dr. Foster call Rebecca personally.
Maya’s blood showed traces of a prescription sleep medication.
A very small amount.
But Maya had never been prescribed one.
I stared at Dr. Foster.
“How?”
“That is what we need to find out.”
Maya was asleep in the next room.
Rebecca lowered her voice.
“Could Isabella have given it to her?”
Dr. Foster answered carefully.
“It is possible.”
“How recently?”
“Likely within the past several days.”
I thought about the cameras.
I called Marcus.
“Search the kitchen archive.”
“For what?”
“Anything involving Maya’s drinks.”
Twenty minutes later, he called back.
“I found something.”
The footage showed Isabella in the kitchen two nights earlier.
She opened a prescription bottle.
Crushed half a tablet.
Mixed it into a glass of milk.
Then carried it upstairs.
The next camera showed her entering Maya’s bedroom.
Rebecca watched beside me.
“Why drug a child?”
I already knew.
Because a sleeping child could not call her father.
Because a sleeping child could not watch what happened downstairs.
Marcus continued searching.
Then he found the rest.
At 1:13 a.m. that same night, Isabella returned to the kitchen.
She was not alone.
A man entered through the service door.
Tall.
Dark coat.
Gray hair.
He kissed her.
Then he placed a leather briefcase on my kitchen table.
I recognized him immediately.
Julian Voss.
My chief financial officer.
The man who had spent eleven months sitting beside me during acquisition negotiations.
The man who had told me that morning not to leave the boardroom.
Rebecca whispered.
“Nathan.”
I could barely answer.
“Yes.”
On the video, Isabella opened the briefcase.
Inside were copies of Maya’s trust records.
And on top of them was a document bearing the logo of Hart Global Holdings.
I zoomed in.
It was the acquisition agreement.
Julian pointed to a page.
Then Isabella said something the camera microphone caught clearly.
May you like
“Once Nathan signs tomorrow, we won’t need him anymore.”
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