Chapter 3 — The Woman Wearing My Robe
Daniel was arrested before breakfast.
Not for attempted murder.
Not yet.
Detective Harris charged him with obstruction, evidence tampering, and conspiracy connected to the hospital incident. Evelyn was detained two hours later while trying to leave the Mercer estate through the service entrance.
Olivia disappeared.
By noon, every news station in the city had a camera outside St. Mary’s.
The headlines called it a “Mercer family tragedy.”
They showed Daniel’s wedding photograph, the one where he was looking at the camera while I was looking at him.
They showed Evelyn attending charity galas and opening hospital wings.
They called her a respected philanthropist.
They called me an injured socialite.
Nobody called my baby by a name.
Daniel and I had chosen one three weeks earlier.
Sophie.
We had not told anyone.
I repeated it silently while reporters discussed “the lost pregnancy” as if my daughter had been an unfortunate appointment.
Sophie.
Sophie.
Sophie.
At three in the afternoon, Detective Harris entered my room.
“Daniel has an attorney.”
“Of course he does.”
“Evelyn has three.”
“Of course she does.”
“Marcus is requesting a deal.”
I looked toward the window.
“What is he offering?”
“He says Evelyn paid him twenty thousand dollars to inject something into your IV. He claims he didn’t know what was in the syringe.”
“Do you believe him?”
“No.”
“Do you believe he’ll testify?”
“If it keeps him out of prison for attempted murder, he’ll testify against his own shadow.”
Harris placed a folder on the bedside table.
“The search team found your prenatal vitamins.”
“And?”
“Several capsules contained ground zolpidem.”
I closed my eyes.
Daniel had filled those compartments every Sunday.
He had watched me swallow them.
Sometimes he brought me water.
Sometimes he placed his hand over my stomach afterward.
“You also need to know that Daniel’s attorney is suggesting you secretly took his sleeping medication.”
“He’s lying.”
“We know.”
“Does everyone else?”
“Not yet.”
A nurse appeared at the door.
“There’s a woman downstairs asking to see Mrs. Mercer.”
“No visitors,” Harris said.
“She says her name is Olivia Hart.”
I turned so quickly that pain shot through my ribs.
Harris looked at the nurse.
“Where is she?”
“Security office. They recognized her from the news.”
“Keep her there.”
When the nurse left, Harris faced me.
“She may be here to manipulate you.”
“I want to see her.”
“That isn’t a good idea.”
“She was in my house. She knew about the sedatives. I need to hear what she says when Daniel and Evelyn aren’t telling her what to say.”
Harris thought for a moment.
“You won’t be alone.”
“Fine.”
Olivia entered twenty minutes later wearing jeans, a baseball cap, and no makeup.
Without the ivory robe and confident smile, she looked younger than I remembered. Frightened too.
An officer checked her bag before allowing her to approach the bed.
Harris stood against the wall with his arms folded.
Olivia stared at the bruises on my face.
“Oh my God.”
“You saw me leave in an ambulance.”
“I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“You heard the hospital call.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Claire, I am so sorry.”
“Take off the act.”
She flinched.
“I’m not acting.”
“You slept with my husband while I was losing our child.”
“Daniel told me the marriage was over.”
“Did he tell you to wear my robe?”
She looked down.
“He said you weren’t coming back.”
The room went still.
Harris straightened.
“When did he say that?” he asked.
Olivia realized what she had revealed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“When did Daniel tell you Claire wasn’t coming back?”
“Before the fall?” I asked.
Olivia began to cry.
Not the controlled tears she used at company dinners when Daniel praised her work. These were ugly, panicked tears.
“He said you were leaving.”
“Leaving how?”
“He said you would be out of the house after that night.”
“Because I was supposed to be dead?”
“No.”
“Then why was I not coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
She covered her face.
Evelyn’s voice returned to me from the recording.
You knew exactly what you needed to know.
“Did you put the sedative in my vitamins?” I asked.
Olivia lowered her hands.
“I switched the capsules.”
The admission hurt more than I expected.
Maybe because part of me had still wanted one person in that bedroom to be less guilty than the others.
“Why?”
“Daniel said you weren’t sleeping. He said you refused medication because you were afraid it would hurt the baby.”
“So you secretly drugged me for him?”
“He told me it was a lower dose than a doctor would prescribe.”
“You work in administration, Olivia. You’re not stupid.”
“He said you were becoming paranoid.”
“You were sleeping with my husband, entering my house, and replacing my medication. Paranoia would have been the correct response.”
She looked at Harris.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You should assume everything you say is being documented,” he answered.
Olivia turned back to me.
“I didn’t know about the stairs until that night.”
“But you brought the vial.”
Her lips parted.
Harris took a step forward.
“What was in it?”
“Concentrated liquid zolpidem.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Evelyn.”
“Where did she get it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You carried it into Claire’s bedroom.”
“She told me to put it in the humidifier.”
I stared at her.
The small white humidifier had been running beside my bed for weeks because pregnancy made my sinuses dry.
“You put a sedative in something I breathed all night?”
“She said it would make you sleep.”
“It could have poisoned her,” Dr. Patel said from the doorway.
None of us had heard her enter.
Olivia began sobbing again.
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that,” I said. “You didn’t know about the vitamins. You didn’t know about the stairs. You didn’t know I wasn’t coming home. At what point did you decide not knowing made you innocent?”
Her tears stopped.
For the first time, resentment appeared in her eyes.
“You think you were the only one Daniel lied to?”
“I think I’m the one he tried to kill.”
“He promised he was leaving you.”
“And you believed him?”
“He showed me divorce papers.”
“I never received divorce papers.”
“He said he needed to wait until after the baby was born because of the trust.”
Harris looked at me.
“What trust?”
“I don’t know.”
Olivia’s expression changed.
“You really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
She glanced toward the officer, then lowered her voice.
“Daniel said his father’s estate would transfer voting control of Mercer Holdings after the first grandchild was born. You would control the shares until the child turned twenty-five.”
I stared at her.
“Daniel never told me that.”
“Evelyn said you trapped him with the pregnancy.”
“The pregnancy was planned.”
“She said the baby would give you power over the entire family.”
My mouth went dry.
It was never simply about Evelyn hating me.
It was about control.
“Why did Daniel want the baby dead?” I asked.
Olivia shook her head.
“He told me the fall would only cause enough trauma to make you lose the pregnancy.”
Dr. Patel looked away.
“And what was supposed to happen to Claire?” Harris asked.
“He said she would be hospitalized. Then they would prove she was abusing medication. Daniel would file for emergency control of her finances.”
“And marry you?” I asked.
Olivia’s silence answered.
“Did he promise you the company too?”
“He promised me a life.”
“He promised you mine.”
She looked at me with something close to shame.
Then she reached into her jacket.
The officer moved instantly, but Olivia lifted both hands.
“It’s just a flash drive.”
Harris took it from her.
“What’s on it?”
“Emails. Transfers. Messages Daniel made me delete from the company server.”
“Why did you keep copies?”
“Because Evelyn scared me.”
“No,” I said. “You kept them because you wanted insurance.”
Olivia looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
At least that answer was honest.
“What will the files show?” Harris asked.
“That Daniel moved twelve million dollars through shell companies during the last eighteen months.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
“What do you know?”
Olivia glanced at the closed door.
“They were preparing for something they called ‘the transition.’”
My skin prickled.
“What transition?”
“Daniel taking control of Mercer Holdings. Evelyn leaving the country. And Claire…”
She stopped.
“And Claire what?”
Olivia’s face crumpled.
“Claire becoming the tragedy that made everyone feel sorry for them.”
Before anyone could respond, Harris’s phone rang.
He listened for less than a minute.
Then he looked at me.
“The officers searching your house found legal documents in Daniel’s safe.”
“What documents?”
“A petition requesting permanent guardianship over you due to alleged mental incapacity.”
“When was it written?”
“Six weeks ago.”
My daughter had still been alive inside me.
Daniel had been assembling the paperwork to erase me while he kissed my stomach and asked whether Sophie would have my eyes.
Harris continued.
“There’s also a draft press release.”
I knew the answer before I asked.
“What does it say?”
“It announces that you suffered a fatal accidental fall after a long private struggle with prescription drug dependence.”
Olivia lowered her head.
The plan had never been to send me to the hospital.
It had never been to take my baby and leave me alive.
May you like
Daniel had written the ending before Evelyn poured the tea.
And according to the date on the document, they had written it before I ever stepped onto the staircase.
