Chapter 7 - THE GRAVE AT MIDNIGHT
My father had been dead for eight years.
He died after a sudden heart attack in his study.
Daniel and I were engaged at the time.
He had been the last person to see my father alive.
That fact had never troubled me before.
Now it was the only thing I could think about.
My father, Robert Bennett, had been sixty-two.
He exercised every morning.
He drank rarely.
His medical examinations showed no serious heart condition.
The night he died, Daniel told me they had shared whiskey and discussed our future.
He said my father had finally accepted him.
I wanted to believe that.
My father had never trusted Daniel.
He called him charming without kindness.
At the time, I believed he was being overprotective.
After the funeral, Daniel became indispensable.
He handled phone calls.
He comforted me.
He proposed that we marry sooner because life was uncertain.
Six months later, I became Claire Whitmore.
Rebecca requested my father’s archived medical and autopsy records.
The death had been ruled natural.
No toxicology beyond a basic screening had been performed.
His body had been cremated according to instructions presented by Daniel.
I had signed the authorization.
At least, I thought I had.
Rebecca examined the document.
My authentication mark was missing.
Another forged signature.
My father had been cremated before I was emotionally capable of questioning anything.
Every physical trace was gone.
Except perhaps the whiskey glass.
The estate inventory indicated that household items from his study had been boxed and stored.
I had never opened them.
They remained inside a Bennett Holdings warehouse.
Marcus accompanied investigators to retrieve the boxes.
They found my father’s desk clock, framed photographs, pens, books, and two crystal glasses wrapped in newspaper.
One glass had a faint brown stain near the bottom.
Modern testing found residue from a cardiac medication my father had never been prescribed.
It was chemically related to the medication Dr. Morton gave me.
The concentration could not prove murder.
Eight years of storage had degraded the sample.
But it raised enough suspicion to reopen the case.
Dr. Morton had been one of Daniel’s family physicians eight years earlier.
Northstar Advisory did not exist then.
However, bank records showed that Evelyn had transferred two hundred thousand dollars to Morton through a private investment company one week after my father’s death.
Rebecca spread the records across the conference table.
“Your father’s death gave you direct control of the trust.”
“And marrying me gave Daniel access to my life.”
“He didn’t receive ownership.”
“No.”
“But he believed he could gradually take control.”
I remembered Daniel encouraging me to step away from Bennett Holdings.
He said the company reminded me of grief.
He offered to manage everything.
I refused because my father had trained me too well.
That refusal may have saved my life.
Investigators questioned Morton again.
This time, they asked about Robert Bennett.
Morton denied knowing him.
They showed him the payment.
He claimed it was an investment return.
They showed him Daniel’s appointment records.
Morton stopped speaking.
His attorney requested a private conference.
Two hours later, Morton offered limited cooperation in exchange for reduced charges.
He admitted falsifying my medical records.
He admitted accepting payments from Northstar.
He admitted prescribing medication designed to make me weak and disoriented.
He claimed Daniel told him the goal was to make me appear mentally unstable during divorce proceedings.
“Did he intend to kill her?” an investigator asked.
Morton said no.
“Did you believe the dosage was safe?”
Morton hesitated.
“I believed it was manageable.”
“Did you treat Robert Bennett?”
Another hesitation.
“No.”
The investigator placed the photograph of my father’s whiskey glass before him.
Morton’s hands began trembling.
He still denied involvement.
But he asked whether the statute of limitations applied to medical negligence.
The question revealed more than his answer.
That evening, Evelyn disappeared.
Her phone was found inside the mansion.
Her passport was gone.
Security footage showed her leaving through the service entrance at four in the morning.
A hired car drove her to a private airfield.
The plane was scheduled for Canada but never departed.
The pilot claimed Evelyn canceled after receiving a phone call.
She entered a gray vehicle outside the airfield.
No camera captured the license plate.
Daniel claimed he did not know where she had gone.
Vanessa also disappeared.
She left her apartment with Sophie and two suitcases.
Police issued an alert because Sophie’s identity records were part of an active fraud investigation.
Daniel remained inside the mansion despite the approaching eviction deadline.
He fired the remaining household staff.
He covered several cameras.
He disconnected the internet.
The backup system continued transmitting through a hidden cellular connection.
On the twentieth night after I left, the mansion’s motion sensors activated at 2:13 a.m.
Daniel entered the basement wine cellar carrying a shovel.
He moved a cabinet away from the stone wall.
Behind it was a narrow metal door I had never seen.
Daniel unlocked it.
He disappeared inside for forty-seven minutes.
When he returned, his shirt was stained with dirt.
Marcus enlarged the recording.
Daniel carried something wrapped in plastic.
He placed it in the trunk of his car and drove away.
Police followed.
Daniel traveled to the cemetery where my father’s ashes had been interred.
May you like
He parked near the locked gates.
Then he carried the plastic-wrapped object toward my father’s grave.
