I didn't sleep the night of the gala. I lay awake running through everyone who touched the private machinery of this family — the people who'd have seen the contract's exact wording, my father's hospital records, the financial trail connecting Douglas's payment to Michael Martins' cardiac surgery.
By morning, I had a short list, and every name on it made my stomach turn for a different reason.
Freda managed the house, but she'd have no reason to touch legal contracts or hospital billing. Sarah had access to family finances, certainly, but medical records seemed like a stretch — unless she'd asked someone else to pull them for her. Grace had motive in abundance, but Rita's description — *legal, medical, or financial access* — didn't match a woman whose only real power in this house was he
