Chapter 4: What Hale Left Behind
Alexander's attorney, Margaret Forsythe, arrived at the mansion forty minutes later.
She was sixty-three, small, and wore reading glasses on a chain around her neck.
She had handled Alexander's legal affairs for nine years.
She had also handled Claire's estate.
She walked into the private study where Alexander was waiting and set her briefcase on the desk without being asked.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"From the beginning."
He did.
She listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"The competency documentation Hale mentioned," she said.
"If it exists, it would need two independent psychiatric evaluations and a formal petition to the court.
That process takes weeks, not hours."
"He said seventy-two hours."
"Then either he was bluffing to frighten you, or he already has something prepared that bypasses standard procedure." She looked at him over her glasses.
"Which means someone inside the court system may be involved."
Alexander sat with that.
"Pull everything," he said.
"Every document connected to my medical history in the last eighteen months.
Every power of attorney filing.
Every amendment to my estate."
"Already planning to." Margaret opened her briefcase.
"There's something else you should know.
When Claire passed, I flagged an irregularity in the estate transfer timing.
A codicil appeared in her will three weeks before she died.
It redirected a significant portion of her personal assets away from her family and toward a private medical trust."
Alexander went still.
"I never saw that codicil."
"You signed it."
"Margaret."
"Your signature is on it.
Witnessed by Dr.
Richard Hale and a notary I have never been able to locate since." She placed a document on the desk.
"I raised it once, quietly, with Hale.
He told me Claire had requested the change herself and that you had been present for the signing.
You were in Singapore that week."
Alexander looked at the signature on the page.
It was close.
Very close.
But the loop on the B was wrong.
"That's not my signature," he said.
"No," Margaret said.
"I don't believe it is."
The door opened.
Daniel Ross stepped in and placed a folder on the desk beside Margaret's document.
"Hale's prescription records," Daniel said.
"The ones he filed with your insurance provider."
Alexander opened the folder.
The medications listed were standard.
Vitamins.
A mild blood pressure medication.
Nothing unusual.
"Now look at the second page," Daniel said.
A separate set of records.
Same dates.
Different source — a private pharmacy in a suburb forty minutes from the city.
The medications on the second list were not vitamins.
Margaret leaned forward and read the names aloud.
"Midazolam.
Lorazepam.
Scopolamine." She looked up.
"These are sedatives and memory-disrupting agents.
Scopolamine in particular is associated with compliance and memory impairment."
"How long?" Alexander asked.
Daniel pointed to the earliest date on the second list.
It was four months before Claire died.
The room was very quiet.
"He started with her," Alexander said.
"It appears so," Margaret said.
"And when she was gone, he had a grieving widower who trusted him completely."
Alexander stood and walked to the window.
Outside, the grounds were dark.
Security lights cast long shadows across the lawn.
"Vanessa," he said.
"How long has she been part of this?"
Daniel set a second folder on the desk.
"Her financial records going back three years.
She has no significant income of her own.
But eighteen months ago, a private account in her name received a transfer of four hundred thousand dollars." He paused.
"From a shell company registered to a trust."
"The same medical trust from Claire's codicil?" Margaret asked.
"Same trust.
Same registration date."
Alexander turned from the window.
"They recruited her before Claire was even gone."
Neither Daniel nor Margaret answered.
They didn't need to.
Alexander looked at the folders spread across his desk.
The forged signature.
The pharmacy records.
The financial transfer.
"Is this enough?" he asked Margaret.
"For an arrest warrant?
Not yet.
For a criminal investigation?" She closed her briefcase.
"It's a very strong beginning."
She picked up her phone to make the call.
It rang before she could dial.
She looked at the screen.
Frowned.
"It's my office," she said.
"At this hour."
She answered.
Listened for eleven seconds.
Then she lowered the phone slowly and looked at Alexander.
"Someone filed an emergency competency petition against you forty minutes ago," she said.
"It was accepted by a judge at nine forty-seven this evening."
Alexander stared at her.
"The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning," Margaret said.
"Eight a.m."
She set the phone on the desk.
"Richard Hale is listed as the filing physician." She paused.
"Vanessa Cole is listed as the petitioning next of kin."
Alexander looked at the door.
They were still in his house.
Both of them.
Sitting in his screening room under guard.
And they had still managed to file the paperwork.
"They had someone on the outside," Daniel said.
"Yes," Alexander said.
He picked up his own phone.
May you like
"Then we have until eight a.m.," he said.
"And I am not going to spend it waiting."
