Chapter 3 - THE VISITS SHE COULD NOT REMEMBER The hospital’s electronic visitor system showed that Caleb had entered Rebecca’s room seven times during the previous week.
Rebecca remembered only three visits.
On two of the missing occasions, her medication record showed unusually high doses of painkillers and sedatives.
Dr. Wells had authorized neither increase.
Nurse Emily reviewed the shifts.
One dose had been administered under her login while she was treating another patient in intensive care.
Someone had copied her credentials.
The second dose was documented by a temporary nurse named Melissa Trent.
Hospital employment records showed no nurse by that name.
Security footage captured a woman in scrubs entering Rebecca’s room at 2:16 a.m. She wore a surgical mask and kept her face turned away from the camera.
Caleb arrived eleven minutes later.
He stayed for forty minutes.
Rebecca had no memory of the visit.
Detective Quinn asked the laboratory to retest blood samples taken that morning. The results showed a sedative concentration high enough to impair judgment without causing unconsciousness.
“What did he need me awake for?” Rebecca asked.
Quinn opened a scanned document recovered from Caleb’s briefcase.
A durable financial power of attorney.
Rebecca’s signature appeared at the bottom.
The witness was listed as Charles Bell.
The same name on the visitor log.
Rebecca stared at the page.
“I didn’t sign this.”
The document carried her thumbprint.
Caleb had likely pressed her hand against the ink pad while she was drugged.
The power of attorney gave him authority over Hartwell Medical Technologies if Rebecca became physically or mentally incapable of managing her affairs.
The document had been uploaded to the company’s legal system that afternoon.
Her board planned to recognize Caleb’s authority at nine the next morning.
Rebecca looked toward Dr. Wells.
“If Emily hadn’t stopped him, where was he taking me?”
“Brookhaven,” Quinn said. “Once there, he could control which doctors evaluated you.”
A physician employed by the facility had already prepared an incapacity certificate. It described Rebecca as paranoid, medication-dependent, and cognitively impaired after the crash.
The certificate was dated the following day.
“They wrote the diagnosis before examining me,” Rebecca whispered.
Quinn nodded.
The forged chart, sedatives, transfer form, and power of attorney all served one purpose.
Caleb needed Rebecca declared incompetent before she could expose the loans.
Emily returned with the handwritten visitor book used during a brief computer outage two nights earlier.
One entry had been erased.
She held the page beneath ultraviolet light.
The original handwriting became visible.
Gideon Price—board chairman.
Rebecca’s face drained of color.
Gideon had been her mother’s closest business partner. After her death, he became Rebecca’s mentor and chaired the Hartwell board.
He had warned Rebecca repeatedly that Caleb was under too much financial pressure.
“He told me to investigate the loans,” she said.
“Then why visit while you were sedated?” Quinn asked.
Rebecca had no answer.
The visitor log showed Gideon entered eleven minutes before Caleb.
May you like
Neither man had disclosed the meeting.
👉 The executive who encouraged Rebecca to investigate her husband had secretly visited her hospital room alongside him.
