Chapter 18 - The Visit Before the Emergency
Brighton Medical Center was not the hospital treating Megan and Eli.
It was a private clinic twenty-five miles away.
Nathan's visitor wristband carried a date.
Tuesday morning.
The same day as the kitchen incident.
Ortiz obtained visitor records.
Nathan had signed in at nine-oh-eight to visit a patient named Evelyn Cole.
Thomas assumed the patient was a relative.
Nathan's attorney said the visit was private and irrelevant.
Then investigators learned Evelyn was not a relative.
She was a retired pharmacist who had worked for Nathan's father decades earlier and remained a family friend.
She was recovering from surgery.
Hospital records showed Nathan visited for twenty-three minutes.
Security footage showed him leaving with a small paper pharmacy bag tucked beneath his coat.
The bag did not belong to him.
Evelyn told police Nathan had offered to carry several personal items to her car because she expected to be discharged soon.
She later realized a sealed package was missing.
Investigators did not disclose specific substances publicly, and Thomas did not care about the technical names.
What mattered was that the missing medication was related to the compounds found in Megan and Eli.
Nathan had obtained access hours before entering the Reed home.
That closed another gap.
Judith's attorney now shifted strategy.
Judith admitted wrongdoing but argued Nathan had deceived her about the nature and risk of what he gave her.
Price agreed to testify that Nathan had told him Judith would "do the part she can live with."
The phrase suggested Nathan deliberately kept Judith partially ignorant so she could be used and discarded.
Megan struggled with that distinction.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel," she told Thomas.
"She chose to put something in my drink."
"She chose money over me."
"But Nathan chose the rest."
Thomas sat beside her at home for the first time since the incident.
Police had finally released the house after completing the search.
They had not moved back in permanently.
They were there only to collect clothes and let Megan face the kitchen in daylight.
"You don't have to decide what you feel," Thomas said.
Megan looked at the island.
"I keep seeing Eli on the floor."
Thomas did too.
The tile had been professionally cleaned, but he could still see invisible outlines in his mind.
Eli entered carrying his backpack.
He stopped at the doorway.
Thomas expected him to become afraid.
Instead, the boy walked straight to the cabinet where his phone had been found.
He crouched.
"I was trying to get it."
Thomas knelt beside him.
"When?"
"When you came home."
"I heard your voice."
"I couldn't open my eyes."
Thomas felt tears rise.
Eli touched the edge of the cabinet.
"I thought if I could push the phone out, you'd see the video."
Thomas looked away for a moment.
That tiny finger movement had not simply been a sign of consciousness.
Eli had been trying to communicate.
"You did enough," Thomas said.
"More than enough."
Eli shook his head.
"There's another video."
Thomas turned back.
"What?"
"I restarted it."
"When?"
"After Grandma knocked the phone over the first time."
Thomas stared at him.
The recovered file began with the sugar-crystal project and ran into the confrontation.
Technicians assumed the camera continued until the phone slid beneath the cabinet and eventually stopped from damage.
Eli said there had been a second recording.
"I pressed stop because Mom told me to go upstairs."
"Then when I came back down, I pressed record again."
Thomas called Ortiz.
The digital team reexamined the device.
The file system had been damaged badly enough that deleted and incomplete clips were not listed normally.
After hours of deeper recovery, they located a second video fragment.
It was only six minutes long.
The angle was worse because the phone had fallen onto its side.
Most of the image showed the base of the island and people's shoes.
But the audio was clearer than the first recording.
The clip began with Megan saying, "Eli, go back upstairs."
Eli answered, "I need my charger."
Judith said, "Let him get it."
Then Nathan's voice came from the back hall.
He had not left when everyone thought he did.
"We are out of time," Nathan said.
Megan answered, "Get out of my house."
Nathan laughed.
"Your husband will be home soon."
"That's exactly why I'm staying."
Thomas felt his skin turn cold.
Nathan had planned from the beginning to remain until Thomas arrived.
The next thirty seconds were muffled.
Then Judith's voice rose.
"I did what you asked."
Nathan answered, "You delayed her."
"That isn't enough anymore."
Judith said, "You said Thomas would only be questioned."
Nathan replied, "Thomas is going to lose everything."
The clip ended before the crucial final minutes.
But one sentence remained after a burst of static.
Megan's voice said, "Eli, push the phone under the cabinet."
Thomas closed his eyes.
Megan remembered nothing about saying it.
Eli did.
"Mom saw him look at my phone," the boy said.
"She knew he wanted it."
The missing device had not survived by accident.
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Megan had told Eli to hide it while she was already becoming weak.
And Eli had spent his last conscious moments trying to obey.
