Chapter 15 - The Midnight Docket
We had less than a week before Sophie’s fifth birthday, but Patricia wasn't waiting.
At 9:00 AM the following morning, my attorney, Evelyn Reed, called me with panic bleeding through the phone line.
"Clara, get to the county courthouse right now," Evelyn said, papers rustling frantically in the background. "Patricia’s defense team filed an emergency motion on the shadow docket at midnight. Judge Vance-Sterling just approved an expedited competency hearing for 11:00 AM."
"Judge Sterling?" I yelled into the receiver, buckling Sophie into her car seat with one hand while Daniel loaded our overnight bags into the trunk. "He's her second cousin!"
"He claims there’s no conflict of interest," Evelyn said bitterly. "They have an independent psychiatric evaluation claiming Patricia suffered from a 'transient dissociative fugue state' caused by an adverse reaction to a new hormone replacement therapy. If Sterling accepts the finding, she won't be sent to prison. She’ll be granted supervised medical release to a private estate."
"Which estate?" I asked, though my stomach already knew the answer.
"The lake house on Black Lake," Evelyn replied. "Three miles from where you are right now."
I hung up, slammed my palm against the steering wheel, and turned to Daniel. "Your cousin is freeing her. Today."
"Not if I take the stand," Daniel said, his jaw tightening into a line of steel I had never seen on him before. "I have the ledger. I have my father’s medical notes from his personal physician that were never entered into evidence."
"If you present those notes, Daniel," I warned, staring deep into his bloodshot eyes, "you're admitting your mother is a serial killer. Your family name will be burned to ash. The Vance foundation, your career, your social standing—everything you were raised to protect will be destroyed."
May you like
Daniel reached out, his hand steady as he gently placed it over mine. "Clara, the moment my mother pushed our daughter under that pond, the Vance name stopped being a legacy. It became a curse. Let it burn."
***
