Chapter 5 - The Desperate Escape
The realization hit me like a freight train, connecting all the horrifying pieces together.
Richard hadn't just threatened me with the laptop; he had threatened Chloe with her mother's life.
He had somehow convinced an eight-year-old girl that if she told the truth, he would murder Meredith.
I knew that if the police took me to jail right now, Chloe would be handed over to Meredith and Richard.
She would be trapped in the same house as her abuser, completely defenseless.
I had to get out of this hospital, find the evidence to destroy Richard, and save my family.
As the police officer reached for his handcuffs, I suddenly gasped loudly and clutched my chest.
I forced myself to collapse onto the linoleum floor, hyperventilating and pretending to have a massive heart attack.
"We need a medic over here, the suspect is going into cardiac arrest!" the officer shouted in a panic.
The security guards released their grip on my arms as nurses rushed over with a crash cart.
In the ensuing chaos, I suddenly rolled to my feet, shoved past a startled orderly, and sprinted down the hallway.
"Stop him!" Richard roared, finally dropping his gentle grandfather facade.
I bolted into the emergency stairwell, taking the concrete steps three at a time as the alarms began to blare.
I burst out onto the second floor, grabbed a white doctor's coat from a linen cart, and slipped it on over my clothes.
Keeping my head down, I casually walked out the hospital's side exit and blended into the crowded city sidewalk.
I was officially a fugitive, running entirely on adrenaline and sheer desperation.
I stole a bicycle from a nearby rack and rode furiously across town toward Richard's massive, gated mansion.
I knew he kept all his most secretive documents locked in his private study.
I bypassed his expensive security system using the emergency override code Meredith had shared with me years ago.
I crept into his dark, luxurious study and began tearing the room apart looking for anything I could use against him.
Behind a massive oil painting, I discovered a hidden wall safe with a biometric scanner.
I used a strip of clear tape to lift a perfect thumbprint from his crystal whiskey glass on the desk and pressed it to the scanner.
The heavy steel door clicked open, revealing a stack of terrifying legal documents.
Inside was a massive life insurance policy taken out on Meredith, completely confirming Chloe's silent warning.
May you like
But sitting right underneath the insurance policy was an official medical DNA report that made my blood freeze.
The document proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man known as Richard was not Meredith's biological father.
