Chapter 11 - The Voice on the Line
Mark’s phone vibrated violently on the bedside table.
He didn't want to answer, but his fingers moved on instinct. He pressed the phone to his ear, his eyes locked on the woman standing beyond the glass partition.
"Step outside that room, Mark," Evelyn’s voice came through the receiver, smooth, calm, and utterly rational. "Or we can make this very unpleasant for everyone involved."
"The police are ten feet away, Evelyn," Mark whispered into the mic, not daring to raise his voice and alarm the ICU staff. "Move one inch closer and you spend the rest of your life in a state penitentiary."
"The police are incompetent fools," she murmured, her voice dripping with venomous amusement. "Do you honestly believe I came here to hurt your pathetic little wife? Her brain is already melted, darling. Even if she wakes up, she won't remember what day of the week it is, let alone what happened in that living room."
"Get out," Mark growled.
"I didn't come for Elena," Evelyn said softly. "I came for what belongs to me. Do you really think Richard Sterling took this case for a fee? He took it because I hold the deed to every commercial lot his firm owns in this county. I run this town, Mark. I always have. And I will not allow my granddaughter to be raised by a sniveling coward and a broken, hysterical failure."
"She’s not your daughter!" Mark hissed.
"No, she is your daughter. Which means she is my legacy," Evelyn replied, her tone chillingly affectionate. "Check your pocket, Mark. Look at the paper I slipped into your jacket while the paramedics were crowding your hallway."
Mark’s stomach plunged. Keeping the phone to his ear, he reached his free hand into the pocket of his dark jacket. His fingers brushed against a thick, folded piece of legal parchment.
He pulled it out.
It was a copy of an emergency custody decree, stamped with a county court seal from three days ago—signed by Judge Harrison, an old family friend who dined at Evelyn's country club every Sunday.
"You filed this before you even came to the house," Mark realized, the horror suffocating him. "You didn't do this because you snapped today. You planned this weeks ago."
May you like
"Of course I did," Evelyn whispered. "Now look down the hall, Mark. Behind me."
Mark looked past his mother's silhouette. Two men in dark suits were standing outside the pediatric ward doors at the far end of the hallway, their hands resting inside their jackets.
