Chapter 7 - The Wife Declared Insane
Emergency lights flickered on.
Jason stood near the door with two security officers.
Neither wore body cameras.
Olivia stepped between them and the scanner.
“You had me declared incompetent.”
“I had you evaluated.”
“You paid the doctor.”
“I paid him to tell the truth.”
Jason held up his phone.
A video showed Olivia crying in a therapist’s office after Daniel’s death.
Her words had been edited to make her sound paranoid.
Someone is following me.
My father tried to warn me.
I think Jason knows more than he says.
At the time, those statements had sounded irrational.
Now they were true.
Jason smiled.
“One emotional video is all a judge needs when the husband is respectable and the wife has no money.”
Walter stepped forward.
“You are not respectable.”
Jason looked at the man who raised him.
“You never had the courage to stop Mother.”
“I stopped her tonight.”
“You carried her secrets for thirty years.”
“So did you.”
Jason’s face hardened.
“I built something from them.”
“You built nothing. You learned to steal from women who trusted you.”
One of the security officers moved toward Walter.
David struck him from the side.
The second officer grabbed Rachel.
Olivia seized the metal document tray and drove it into his arm.
The room erupted into a struggle.
Jason rushed toward the scanner and tore the original deed from the machine.
Olivia caught his sleeve.
He shoved her against a cabinet.
“You were supposed to sign, smile, and leave.”
“You married me because you thought I was weak.”
“I married you because your father hid everything in your name.”
Olivia grabbed his phone.
Jason tried to take it back.
The screen unlocked under his thumb during the struggle.
A live call was active.
Sharon’s voice came through the speaker.
“Did you destroy the deed?”
Olivia stepped away.
“Not yet.”
Silence.
Then Sharon realized who was holding the phone.
“Olivia.”
Rachel quietly activated the room’s recording system.
Olivia kept Sharon talking.
“Why did you kill my father?”
“I did not kill Daniel.”
“You ordered Jason to meet me after his death.”
“I ordered him to recover what belonged to us.”
“By marrying me?”
“By doing whatever was necessary.”
Jason lunged for the phone.
Walter blocked him.
Olivia continued.
“You forged my signatures, used my identity, and planned to have me declared insane.”
Sharon’s voice became cold.
“You were never capable of managing what Daniel left behind.”
Rachel pointed toward the recording light.
They had the confession.
Then Sharon laughed.
“You believe a recording will save you?”
The fire alarm activated.
Smoke poured through the ventilation system.
Jason pulled free from Walter and ran toward the emergency exit.
Olivia followed him into the hallway.
Through the smoke, she saw Sharon waiting beside the stairwell.
Sharon held a metal case in one hand.
In the other, she held a photograph of Daniel Hart standing beside a damaged car.
The timestamp showed him alive two hours after the accident that supposedly killed him.
“Your father survived the crash,” Sharon said.
Olivia stopped.
“What did you do to him?”
Sharon opened the stairwell door.
May you like
“Ask Walter.”
Continue to the next part: Olivia learns that Walter was the last person to see Daniel alive.
