Chapter 2 - The Missing Evidence
I held my breath immediately and threw my body against the locked utility door.
The heavy wood did not even budge a fraction of an inch.
My lungs began to burn as the sweet, artificial floral gas filled the tiny space.
I dropped to the floor, knowing that toxic gases usually rise toward the ceiling.
I pulled my heavy cardigan over my nose and mouth to filter the air.
I kicked the bottom of the door with every ounce of strength I had left in my body.
I screamed Vincent's name until my throat felt like sandpaper.
Finally, I heard the heavy deadbolt click open from the outside.
Vincent threw the door open, looking completely bewildered.
I stumbled out of the closet and fell onto the bedroom carpet, gasping for clean oxygen.
He caught my shoulders and asked me what I was doing locking myself in the closet.
I looked at him in total shock.
I told him that I did not lock the door and that someone had deliberately trapped me inside.
I pointed frantically toward the open utility hatch in the wall.
I yelled that there was a chemical dispenser poisoning the air supply.
Vincent quickly grabbed my flashlight and peered inside the dark metal duct.
He turned back to me with a deeply confused expression.
He said there was absolutely nothing inside the vent.
I pushed past him and looked inside the duct myself.
The electronic aerosol dispenser was completely gone.
Someone had removed the device from a secondary access point while I was trapped and suffocated.
Doctor Blake suddenly strolled into the bedroom with a smug smile on his face.
He looked at me gasping on the floor and shook his head in mock pity.
He told Vincent that I was clearly suffering from severe hysteria and paranoia.
Doctor Blake insisted that hiring an unqualified woman with wild imagination was dangerous for the boys.
Vincent looked between the empty vent, the arrogant doctor, and me.
I could see the seed of doubt planting itself in the billionaire's exhausted mind.
I refused to let them gaslight me out of this house.
I stood up straight and smoothed my cardigan, locking eyes with Doctor Blake.
I asked the doctor why he was suddenly back upstairs when Vincent had dismissed him earlier.
Doctor Blake's smug smile faltered for a fraction of a second.
He claimed he had simply forgotten his prescription pad on the bedside table.
I looked at the spotless bedside table, which was completely empty.
I realized then that the doctor was the one who had unlocked the door to stage my rescue.
He was trying to make me look like a crazy woman so Vincent would fire me.
I walked past the doctor and headed straight for the boys' medical files on the desk.
I noticed that a specific heavy metal toxicology panel had been repeatedly deleted from the lab results.
The boys were not sick from a natural disease at all.
I quietly slipped the forged lab report into my pocket.
I knew exactly who I needed to interrogate next.
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I marched down the back stairs to confront Mrs. Harper in her private office.
When I opened her door, she was stuffing huge bundles of hundred-dollar bills into a black duffel bag.
