Chapter 14 - Jessica’s Last Lie
“Please help us.”
Jessica’s voice shook on the video.
“Margaret collapsed.”
Noah was crying.
Mark nearly dropped the phone.
The video contained location metadata.
Police traced it to a lakeside cabin owned under one of Margaret’s shell companies.
Mark wanted to drive there.
Police stopped him.
They reached the cabin first.
Margaret was alive.
She had suffered a severe panic episode combined with dehydration.
Jessica surrendered without resistance.
Noah ran into Mark’s arms.
Whatever existed between Mark and Jessica disappeared for a moment.
They were simply two parents holding a terrified child.
Margaret was transported to the hospital under police supervision.
Jessica was questioned.
Her story changed everything again.
She admitted tampering with Richard’s medication.
But she insisted the pills were not dangerous.
“I wanted him sick.”
Mark stared at her through the interview room glass.
“Why?”
Jessica cried.
“Margaret told me Richard was going to expose Noah.”
“You tried to make my father sick because you lied to me?”
“I panicked.”
Investigators tested records from the pharmacy.
Jessica had used strong sleeping medication.
Enough to make Richard ill.
Not necessarily enough to kill him.
Margaret found the pills and removed them.
Jessica claimed she never touched the organizer again.
“So who put the fatal medication in?” Daniel asked.
Jessica looked at him.
“I thought Margaret did.”
Margaret denied it.
For once, investigators believed part of her denial.
Hospital bloodwork from the night Richard died showed a drug Jessica had never possessed.
Dr. Vane had access to it.
That turned suspicion toward him.
Under pressure, he finally admitted the truth.
Richard had confronted him about fraudulent medical billing.
Richard planned to report him.
The doctor used Margaret and Jessica’s chaos as cover.
He altered Richard’s medication.
After Richard died, Dr. Vane showed Margaret evidence that Jessica had tampered with the organizer first.
Margaret assumed Jessica had caused the death.
Vane blackmailed her.
Margaret paid him to keep Jessica out of prison.
For four years.
Margaret had committed fraud.
She had manipulated DNA evidence.
She had hidden financial crimes.
She had helped conceal what she believed might have been manslaughter.
But she had not killed Richard.
Dr. Vane had.
Daniel sat beside me after the confession.
“I don’t know whether that makes anything better.”
“It doesn’t.”
His mother might not be a murderer.
But she had destroyed almost everything Richard tried to protect.
The following morning, prosecutors filed charges against Dr. Vane.
Jessica also faced charges related to medication tampering, evidence destruction, and the treatment of Lily.
Margaret faced financial fraud, obstruction, conspiracy, falsification of evidence, and child endangerment allegations.
For the first time in decades, the Carter family had nowhere left to hide.
But Margaret asked for one thing before her formal arraignment.
She wanted to speak to me.
Alone.
I almost refused.
Then her attorney told Nathan what she wanted to discuss.
There was another trust.
One Richard had created without Margaret’s knowledge.
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And according to Margaret, it did not belong to Lily.
It belonged to me.
