Chapter 9 - THE CANCER WARD
The room went completely silent.
I walked toward Vanessa.
“What does my husband’s treatment have to do with anything?”
She swallowed.
“My father was sick too.”
Charles Carter had died six months before Daniel.
I knew that from the foundation website.
Pancreatic cancer.
“He and Daniel were treated at the same hospital,” Vanessa said.
“Different departments. Different doctors. But my father had people everywhere.”
Malcolm’s expression darkened.
“You told Charles where Daniel was?”
“I thought he wanted to confront him.”
“You knew Charles had threatened him.”
“I didn’t know he would do anything.”
I felt my hands shaking.
“Did he?”
Vanessa looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
That answer was worse than a confession.
Marcus asked:
“What happened?”
She sat down.
“Daniel’s treatment schedule suddenly changed.”
I remembered.
His oncologist had moved an infusion unexpectedly.
We arrived and were told the medication order had been corrected after a pharmacy discrepancy.
At the time, nobody seemed alarmed.
Daniel got treatment.
We went home.
Two days later, he became violently sick.
The doctors said chemotherapy could cause it.
“What are you saying?” I whispered.
Vanessa looked terrified.
“My father asked someone to get Daniel’s medical file.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“To scare him.”
“How?”
“He wanted Daniel to believe his treatment could be interfered with.”
Malcolm stepped forward.
“Charles told me he’d found leverage.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I knew he was threatening Daniel. I didn’t know it involved medication.”
My knees weakened.
Daniel’s cancer had already been advanced.
He might have died regardless.
But suddenly every bad reaction, every unexplained delay, every medication change felt sinister.
I hated myself for even thinking it.
Marcus seemed to read my face.
“We don’t know anyone caused his death.”
He was right.
But Daniel had known something.
I opened the VIDEOS folder again.
There was one recording from three weeks before he died.
He was lying in a hospital bed.
“Rachel,” he whispered to the camera, “if they tell you the cancer took me faster than expected, don’t spend your life trying to prove otherwise.”
I started crying before he finished.
“I’m already dying.”
He smiled weakly.
“What matters is keeping you and the girls safe.”
He coughed.
“Charles knows about Rebecca. Vanessa knows about you. Malcolm knows most of the money trail.”
Malcolm lowered his head.
Daniel continued.
“But there’s one person none of them know about.”
He looked toward the hospital-room door.
“She has the original records.”
Then a woman stepped partially into frame.
Only her hand and shoulder were visible.
Daniel said:
“Mom, come here.”
My entire body froze.
He had not said my mother.
He said:
Mom.
A woman moved into view.
Rebecca.
The woman from the photograph.
My mother.
Alive.
Standing beside my dying husband.
Then she looked directly into the camera.
“Rachel,” she said, “if Daniel is gone when you see this, come find me.”
She held up a piece of paper.
An address.
Marcus paused the video.
I recognized the town immediately.
May you like
It was less than forty miles away.
My mother had been living less than an hour from me.
