Chapter 7 - White Roses
Patricia Sloan placed the flowers on the table beside Samuel’s yellow ones.
The contrast seemed deliberate.
Yellow for survival.
White for mourning.
She wore an expensive gray suit and carried no visible weapon, yet I felt the same cold terror I had felt whenever Grant’s lighter clicked.
Two officers were supposed to be outside my room.
Through the narrow window in the door, I could not see either of them.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Nothing permanent,” Patricia replied. “A scheduling mistake. A false call about an incident downstairs. People are easy to redirect when they believe they’re helping.”
She removed a small device from her handbag and placed it beside the monitor.
The screen flickered.
The alarm indicators went dark.
“I have spent fifteen years protecting people who understand the value of loyalty,” she said. “Your mother-in-law understood. Marcus understood. Even your husband understood, eventually.”
“You helped Diane kill Robert.”
Patricia tilted her head.
“Robert was going to expose financial arrangements that supported several families. His death prevented unnecessary disruption.”
“You mean fraud.”
“I mean stability.”
She spoke as if murder were an accounting adjustment.
The insurance company had been paying false claims through a network of attorneys, doctors, and financial advisers. Diane’s family business helped move some of the money. Marcus protected the participants.
Robert Keller discovered the scheme.
He planned to report it.
Diane drugged him, Marcus created the legal cover, and Patricia approved the insurance payment after the fire.
Years later, Grant began stealing from the same accounts.
Patricia allowed it because she believed he could be controlled.
Then I contacted Julia Moreno.
My proposed trust would have triggered a forensic review of my accounts and the forged beneficiary documents.
My death was meant to stop that review.
“You were never supposed to survive the garage,” Patricia said. “The house was supposed to burn with you inside.”
I stared at her.
Grant had not merely planned to kill me with the iron bar.
The cabinet containing information about house fires was part of the final stage. After I died, they intended to burn the garage and claim the injuries occurred during the fire.
Samuel called police before they could complete the plan.
Patricia opened her handbag again.
This time, she removed a small plastic tube.
“What is that?”
“A solution.”
She stepped toward my IV.
My hand moved toward the nurse-call button.
Patricia noticed.
“That button won’t help you.”
I pressed it anyway.
Nothing happened.
The monitor remained dark. The hallway stayed empty.
Patricia reached for the IV line.
Then a voice spoke from the bathroom.
“Step away from her.”
Dr. Evelyn Hart emerged holding a metal IV pole like a weapon.
Patricia spun around.
She had not known my trauma counselor was inside.
Evelyn had been helping me practice walking to the bathroom when Patricia arrived. Hearing the door lock, she remained hidden and used her phone to send an emergency alert.
Patricia lunged toward the bed.
Evelyn swung the pole.
It struck Patricia’s forearm, knocking the tube to the floor. Patricia grabbed Evelyn’s hair and pulled her down.
I reached for the bouquet.
The glass vase was heavy.
I used both hands to push it from the table.
It shattered against Patricia’s ankle.
She screamed and stumbled.
The door burst open.
Hospital security and police officers rushed inside. Patricia tried to reach her handbag, but Evelyn kicked it beneath the bed.
Within seconds, Patricia was handcuffed.
The plastic tube contained a powerful sedative combined with insulin. Prosecutors believed she intended to cause a fatal medical crisis that could be mistaken for complications from my injuries.
As officers led her away, Patricia looked back at me.
“You think arresting me ends this?”
I said nothing.
She smiled.
“Grant knows the truth about your baby.”
The statement followed me long after she disappeared through the door.
Grant had repeatedly claimed the baby was not his.
I assumed it was another excuse to justify his cruelty.
But Patricia’s words felt different.
That afternoon, Julia brought me a sealed envelope recovered from Patricia’s office. It contained copies of my prenatal medical records and an unauthorized DNA test.
The test compared Grant’s stored medical sample with a sample taken from one of my prenatal blood screenings.
The result showed that Grant was not the biological father.
My mind went blank.
I had never been unfaithful.
The baby could not belong to anyone else.
“There has to be a mistake,” I whispered.
Julia agreed.
The laboratory named on the report did not exist.
The document was fake.
But investigators found an invoice showing that Diane paid for it.
She manufactured the result to convince Grant that the baby was not his.
Why?
Because Grant had recently started expressing doubts about the plan. Messages showed that he worried about killing his own child.
Diane eliminated that hesitation with a false DNA report.
She told him I had betrayed him.
She transformed his unborn baby into an enemy.
That did not excuse Grant.
He still chose cruelty.
But it showed how carefully Diane manipulated everyone around her.
When Rebecca confronted Grant with the fake report, he stared at it for several minutes.
His face collapsed.
“My mother said it was real.”
“She paid someone to create it,” Rebecca replied.
Grant began to cry.
Rebecca did not comfort him.
“You tortured your wife because of a document you never verified.”
Grant covered his face.
Then he made a decision.
He offered to testify against Diane, Patricia, Marcus, and Caleb in exchange for avoiding a life sentence.
Rebecca refused to promise anything.
“Tell us where Marcus is.”
Grant lowered his hands.
“There’s a property nobody knows about. My mother inherited it under another name.”
He gave them directions to an old lakeside house three counties away.
Police surrounded the property before sunrise.
Inside, they found Marcus Bell sitting at a table covered with cash, passports, and ammunition.
He did not resist.
But in the basement, they found something nobody expected.
A locked room containing files on dozens of people.
At the center of the room stood a bulletin board.
My photograph was pinned at the top.
Beneath it were photographs of my mother, my late grandmother, and a man I had never seen before.
A handwritten note connected all four images.
May you like
It read:
SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHO HER FATHER WAS.
