Chapter 8 - THE DEATH CERTIFICATE
The original document revealed something horrifying.
Daniel's recorded time of death was wrong.
By nearly four hours.
That meant the story I'd been told couldn't have happened.
He hadn't died when I thought.
He had been alive for hours afterward.
Someone had changed the records.
The hospital physician who signed the original certificate was the same doctor who had prescribed my medication.
Dr. Alan Morris.
He was arrested that night.
Under questioning, he confessed.
Not to killing Daniel.
But to falsifying records.
"Why?" I asked him.
He wouldn't look at me.
"Because Pierce threatened my family."
"And my husband?"
"I was told Daniel had already died."
"You knew he was alive."
He remained silent.
"Did you poison him?"
"No."
"Did you help poison me?"
He closed his eyes.
"Yes."
My chest tightened.
"What did you give me?"
"A sedative."
"Why?"
"To make you vulnerable."
"Vulnerable to what?"
"Signature."
They wanted me unconscious long enough to forge documents.
I looked at him.
"Marcus told you to do this?"
"No."
"Pierce?"
He shook his head.
"Then who?"
Dr. Morris whispered:
"Your daughter."
The room went silent.
Rachel had arranged the first prescription.
I confronted her.
She didn't deny it.
"I was told it wouldn't hurt you."
"You knew they were drugging me."
"Yes."
"You let them."
"I'm sorry."
I wanted to hate her.
Part of me did.
But another part remembered her as a little girl.
Both things could be true.
She could love me and betray me.
She could be sorry and still be responsible.
I told her that.
She nodded.
"I deserve whatever happens."
Before she left, she gave investigators one final piece of information.
"Pierce has a private facility."
"Where?"
"Near the old water station."
The water station sat on the edge of my former farm.
Federal agents moved immediately.
They found Pierce inside.
But he wasn't alone.
Marcus was there.
His hands were cuffed.
Pierce had apparently arranged for him to be transferred.
A struggle followed.
Pierce escaped through a tunnel.
Marcus was captured.
The tunnel led directly beneath the farm.
Inside was a room filled with computers.
Maps.
Property records.
Photographs of me.
Photographs of Daniel.
Photographs of Rachel.
And a wall covered with dates.
My name appeared beside one date.
The date of my death.
OCTOBER 14.
Three weeks away.
I stared at it.
Reed looked at me.
"We're moving you somewhere secure."
I shook my head.
"No."
"Absolutely not."
"I need to finish this."
"This isn't a movie."
"I know."
I pointed at the wall.
"They planned my death."
Reed sighed.
"And now we know."
"No."
I looked at him.
"Now I know."
There was a difference.
I didn't want revenge.
I wanted the truth.
I wanted Daniel's name cleared.
I wanted my children to face what they had done.
And I wanted the farm back.
But there was one thing none of us understood.
Why had Pierce been so obsessed with the water beneath my land?
The answer came the following morning.
A geologist arrived with a federal team.
He spread a map across the table.
"The aquifer isn't the real prize."
I stared at him.
"Then what is?"
He pointed beneath the farm.
"A natural underground reservoir."
"So?"
"It's enormous."
"How enormous?"
He looked at me.
"Large enough to supply several major cities for generations."
Silence.
Then he added:
"And there's another problem."
"What?"
"The water flows beneath three states."
I stared at the map.
"Who owns it?"
"No one."
"Then why the farm?"
"Because your land contains the only practical access point."
I finally understood.
Whoever controlled the farm could control the pipeline.
Control the water.
Control billions.
Pierce hadn't wanted my three million.
He wanted a fortune worth hundreds of billions.
And he had used my own children to get it.
But there was one final question.
Who had originally discovered the reservoir?
The geologist pointed to an old survey.
The name at the bottom was Daniel's.
May you like
My husband had discovered it twenty-nine years earlier.
And he had spent the rest of his life trying to keep it out of Pierce's hands.
