“You have no right to read my messages.”
“I didn’t touch the phone,” Grace replied.
“You left the preview visible.”
Ortiz asked Mark again whether he wanted to contact an attorney.
He said nothing.
Grace opened the blue folder.
Inside were copies of a temporary voting proxy, a medical incapacity declaration, two property transfer authorizations, and a resolution that would have allowed Mark to sell a portfolio of commercial buildings to a holding company registered six weeks earlier.
The holding company’s listed manager was Vanessa Cole.
Mark stared at the paperwork.
“That file was private.”
“It was hidden in a locked drawer inside a home jointly owned by Claire,” Grace said.
“More importantly, several documents contain her signature.”
“She signed them.”
“No, she did not.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I watched her provide handwriting samples at my office yesterday.
We also have the original electronic drafts from your company server.
The signatures appeared after Claire refused to sign the proxy.”
Mark looked toward Ortiz.
“This is a corporate dispute.
Not a police matter.”
Ortiz lifted the evidence bag.
“The medication makes it a police matter.”
Mark’s eyes settled on the bottle.
Claire had undergone surgery the previous spring.
Her recovery had been slower than expected, but her doctor believed she would regain full strength.
She had been prescribed medication to prevent a dangerous complication while she healed.
Mark had begun mentioning her health at board meetings even after she returned to work.
Claire is still fragile, he would say.
Claire needs rest.
Claire should not be burdened with decisions right now.
At home, he became solicitous whenever anyone was watching.
He brought her tea.
He reminded her to take her medication.
He told friends that caring for her had taught him what marriage truly meant.
In private, he complained that her recovery was taking too long.
The first time Claire noticed that several capsules looked different, Mark told her the pharmacy must have changed manufacturers.
The second time, she called the pharmacy.
The pharmacist said the prescription had not changed.
Claire planned to confront Mark, but Lily stopped her.
“Don’t tell him yet,” the girl whispered.
Lily had seen her father in the bathroom two nights earlier.
She had been searching for her stuffed otter, which she had left near the laundry basket, when she heard the cabinet door open.
Through the narrow gap in the hallway, she watched Mark remove the orange bottle, pour capsules into his palm, and replace them with pills from a white envelope.
He flushed some of the original medication and pushed the substitutes into the bottle one by one.
Lily did not understand why.
She only understood that he checked the hallway twice before doing it.
The next afternoon, she placed an old tablet on a shelf across from the bathroom cabinet.
The screen was cracked, but its camera still worked.
She positioned it behind a basket of folded towels and connected it to the family cloud account.
Mark repeated the exchange the following night.
This time, the tablet recorded everything.
Lily showed Claire the video in the laundry room.
Claire watched her husband pour away the medicine that was supposed to protect her life.
She did not scream.
