Chapter 3: The Number I Didn't Recognize
I stared at the text for a long time.
*"Jessi.
There's something else in that safe you need to see.
Don't let him near it first."*
No name.
No context.
The number had a local area code but nothing else I recognized.
I typed back: *Who is this?*
Three dots appeared.
Then stopped.
Then appeared again.
*"Someone who made a mistake and has been trying to figure out how to fix it.
Meet me.
Please.
Not at the house."*
Fiona was still asleep.
The pre-dawn sky had shifted from black to a bruised grey.
I had forty dollars in my wallet, a safe key in my coat pocket, and a five-year-old who still thought she'd lost a game.
I texted back one word: *Where?*
The response came in under a minute.
A diner on Carmichael Street.
Two miles away.
*One hour.*
I pulled back onto the road.
The diner was nearly empty when I arrived.
A man in a booth near the back lifted his hand when I walked in — and I stopped so suddenly that the door swung back and hjt my shoulder.
It was Dr.
Reeves.
My own physician.
The name on that prescription bottle.
He looked like he hadn't slept.
His tie was loose.
There was a paper cup of coffee in front of him that he hadn't touched.
"Sit down, Jessi," he said quietly.
"Please."
I didn't sit.
"You prescribed that medication to me.
Except I never received it.
I never even had an appointment."
"I know." He pressed both hands flat on the table.
"That's why I need to talk to you."
"Start talking."
He exhaled slowly.
"Eight months ago, a man came to my office.
He said he was your husband.
He said you'd been experiencing severe anxiety episodes — that you were a danger to yourself at work, that you'd asked him to handle your care privately because you were ashamed.
He had your ID.
Your insurance card.
He had a signed release form."
My jaw tightened.
"I never signed anything."
"I know that now." Dr.
Reeves finally picked up the coffee.
Put it back down without drinking.
"The signature didn't match your file.
I only noticed two weeks ago when I pulled your records for your annual.
I called the number on file to reach you — and a woman answered."
"Chloe," I said.
It wasn't a question.
He nodded once.
I sat down then.
Not because I felt calm.
Because my legs stopped working.
"What did you prescribe?" My voice came out flat, clinical.
The trauma-ward version of me taking over because the other version couldn't afford to exist right now.
"A low-dose sedative compound.
The kind that accumulates.
It doesn't knock you out — it just makes everything slightly slower.
Slightly softer.
Harder to hold onto." He paused.
"Harder to notice things."
I thought about the morning six months ago when I'd walked into the wrong ward at work and stood there for thirty seconds unable to remember why I'd come.
My supervisor had asked if I was sleeping enough.
I'd said yes.
I'd believed it.
"How long?" I asked.
"The prescription was written for a twelve-month supply."
Twelve months.
They had planned for a full year.
"I've already contacted the medical board," Dr.
Reeves said.
"And I have copies of everything — the forged release, the prescription record, the phone log from when Chloe answered.
I can give all of it to whoever you need me to give it to."
I looked at him steadily.
"Why are you doing this?"
He met my eyes.
"Because I have a daughter.
She's seven." He stopped.
"And because I should have caught it sooner."
My phone buzzed on the table between us.
Luca's name on the screen.
I turned it face-down.
"I need those copies," I said.
"Every single one."
He reached into his jacket and placed a sealed envelope on the table.
I picked it up.
It was heavier than I expected.
"There's one more thing," Dr.
Reeves said, and something in his voice made me go still.
"The release form Luca submitted — it listed a secondary contact.
Someone authorized to receive updates on your condition."
"Chloe," I said again.
"No." He hesitated.
"It was a solicitor's office.
A firm called Whitmore and Associates."
I had never heard that name in my life.
"They specialize," he said carefully, "in contested guardianship cases."
The word landed like a stone dropped into still water.
*Guardianship.*
May you like
They hadn't just been planning an affair.
They had been building a case to take Fiona from me.
