“The doctor?”
Harris crouched beside Sophie's bed again.
“What doctor, sweetheart?”
“The lady who came to Dad's house.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“What lady?”
Sophie closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“I don't know her name.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Dark hair.”
“Was she wearing a white coat?”
Sophie nodded.
“Did she wear glasses?”
“No.”
“Did she drive?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of car?”
Sophie thought for a moment.
“Black SUV.”
Harris straightened.
He pulled out his phone.
“I want to show you something.”
He held the screen toward Sophie first.
Her face changed.
“That’s her.”
I looked at the photograph.
A woman with dark hair stood outside a medical building.
Early forties.
White coat.
No glasses.
I knew her.
Not because I had ever spoken to her.
Because I had seen her in Eric's house.
There had been a framed photograph from Sophie's tenth birthday party. Eric had been standing beside a woman I assumed was one of his colleagues.
I had barely noticed her.
Now I could see the same face.
I could even remember the small plaque beneath the frame.
Dr. Rachel Mercer.
My stomach dropped.
“Who is she?”
Harris answered.
“Rachel Mercer. She runs a private endocrinology clinic.”
“Does she know Eric?”
“We're checking.”
“Check faster.”
He looked at me.
“We already found something.”
“What?”
“Her name appears in Eric's financial records.”
“How much?”
“Over the last six months, about twenty-seven thousand dollars.”
I stared at him.
“For medical treatment?”
“We don't know.”
“Eric paid her?”
“Not directly.”
“How?”
“Transfers through a consulting company.”
“What company?”
Harris hesitated.
“Mercer Medical Research.”
The name made my skin crawl.
“Research?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“We're still determining that.”
His phone rang.
He answered.
“This is Harris.”
He listened.
His expression changed.
“Repeat that.”
Another pause.
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“We have a problem.”
“What happened?”
“The laboratory finished testing the bottle.”
I waited.
He lowered the phone.
“It wasn't a vitamin.”
My heart began pounding.
“What was it?”
“A hormone-modulating compound.”
I struggled to understand.
“What does that mean?”
“It was designed to alter hormone levels.”
I looked at Sophie through the doorway.
“Could that have caused the tumor?”
“We don't know yet.”
“But it was in the bottle Eric gave her.”
“Yes.”
“Was it safe for children?”
Harris shook his head.
“The manufacturer says it isn't approved for pediatric use.”
I couldn't speak.
“Why would he give it to her?”
Harris had no answer.
His phone rang again.
He looked at the screen.
“The search team.”
He answered.
“What did you find?”
He listened.
His face drained of color.
“Don't touch anything.”
He ended the call.
I stepped closer.
“What happened?”
“A second notebook.”
“Where?”
“In the locked garage.”
“What does it contain?”
Harris looked directly at me.
“It has Sophie's name on the cover.”
My breath caught.
“And underneath her name,” he said, “there's a date.”
“What date?”
“The date of her first injection.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
“When?”
Harris looked down at his notes.
“Eleven months ago.”
Eleven months.
I repeated the number silently.
Long before the positive test.
Long before the headaches.
Long before the vomiting.
Long before the bruises.
Long before I had any reason to suspect that something was wrong.
Someone had been doing something to my daughter for almost a year.
I thought of Eric's insistence on collecting Sophie himself.
The weekends he called special father-daughter time.
The appointments he described as routine.
The medicine he said was harmless.
The little bottle in my hand.
The syringe I had seen and dismissed.
Every memory seemed to have a second meaning now.
I had trusted him because he had loved Sophie.
Or because he had convinced me he did.
And I had trusted my own judgment because I was her mother.
That was the part I couldn't escape.
I had seen the pieces.
I simply hadn't known what picture they belonged to.
Harris watched me through the silence.
“Mrs. Morgan.”
I looked at him.
“We don't know the full purpose of what Eric was doing.”
“What do you know?”
“We know the evidence is consistent with a deliberate medical regimen.”
The word deliberate frightened me more than anything else.
Not an accident.
Not a mistake.
A plan.
“Why?”
“We're investigating.”
I turned toward Sophie's room.
She was asleep again, pale beneath the hospital blanket.
“How long has he been doing this?”
“We don't know.”
“But the notebook starts eleven months ago.”
“Yes.”
“What happened eleven months ago?”
“We're trying to establish that.”
I sat beside Sophie's bed.
She opened her eyes.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
“Is Dad coming?”
I hesitated.
“No.”
She looked disappointed.
“Is he mad at me?”
“No.”
“Then why isn't he here?”
I took her hand.
“Because there are some things the adults need to figure out.”
She stared at me.
“Did I do something bad?”
“No.”
“Then why does everyone keep talking about me?”
I squeezed her fingers.
“Because you're important.”
She didn't seem satisfied.
Children know when adults are hiding the center of a conversation.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you scared?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
She nodded as though that answer made sense.
“Me too.”
I kissed her forehead.
“You don't have to be brave every minute.”
She closed her eyes.
After she fell asleep, I walked back into the hallway.
Harris was standing near the window.
“I need to know something,” I said.
“What?”
“Does Daniel have anything to do with this?”
“No evidence points to him.”
“Are you sure?”
“We're following evidence, not assumptions.”
I nodded.
That was the answer I needed.
Because Daniel had been accused, threatened, and treated like a suspect, yet Sophie had reached for his hand the moment she was frightened.
Now I understood why Eric had worked so hard to make her afraid of him.
Daniel wasn't the danger.
He had been getting close to something Eric needed hidden.
I found Daniel sitting at the end of the corridor.
He looked exhausted.
“You knew about the doctor.”
“I suspected.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“Did you know Eric was giving Sophie injections?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the clinic?”
“I knew he went there.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Daniel looked down.
“Because I was afraid you'd think I was trying to destroy your relationship with him.”
I sat beside him.
“You should have let me decide what to think.”
“I know.”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
I looked at the closed door to Sophie's room.
“I'm not ready to forgive you.”
“I understand.”
“But I'm glad you stayed.”
He nodded.
“I wasn't going anywhere.”
A nurse came through the hallway carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was the pink bottle.
I watched it disappear behind the doors.
The harmless-looking container had become evidence of something none of us yet understood.
Later that night, Detective Harris returned.
He held a file in one hand.
“We found another connection.”
My stomach tightened.
“To Rachel Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Financial transfers. Clinic records. A consulting company.”
“Is she the doctor?”
“We believe so.”
“And Eric?”
“He was paying her indirectly.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-seven thousand dollars over six months.”
I closed my eyes.
“And the notebook?”
“It's being examined.”
“What does it say?”
“We're not ready to interpret all of it.”
“But you know something.”
Harris hesitated.
“We know the date of the first injection.”
“When?”
“Eleven months ago.”
I stared at him.
“What was the date?”
“October seventeenth.”
The date struck something loose in my memory.
I knew where Sophie had been that day.
She had been nine.
Eric had picked her up from school because I was working late.
She had come home tired.
I had assumed she was simply exhausted.
I had no idea she had been photographed outside a clinic.
I had no idea anyone had written down the date.
I had no idea it might have been the beginning.
Harris watched my face.
“You remember something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
I looked through the glass at my sleeping daughter.
“I remember trusting him.”
The detective said nothing.
I looked down at my hands.
The question that had haunted me all night had changed.
It was no longer simply what was wrong with Sophie.
It was what Eric had been trying to do to her.
And somewhere in a locked garage, eleven months earlier, he had written down the beginning.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Date in Eric’s Notebook Led Back to a Missing Appointment, and I Finally Learned Why He Had Chosen That Particular Day
The Test That Should Have Been Impossible Left Me With a Terrifying Question About the Man I Trusted Most
Part 4 of 12
