Chapter 6 - Five Weeks
The records came on a Thursday, five days after I'd dropped off the letter. Maureen called Warren's personal cell — a number I hadn't known he had, kept separate from the house line Trevor monitored.
Warren told me about it afterward, his voice flat and level, which I'd learned was the register he used when something had made him furious.
"There are two sets of records," he said.
I looked up from the medication log. "Two sets?"
"The official file, and a supplemental file that was never sent to me. The supplemental file has notes from a consulting physician I never met. A Dr. Nolan." He set his phone face down on the blanket. "Nolan's notes say my prognosis is — quote — 'unlikely to include meaningful motor recovery,' and that 'continued aggressive rehabilitation would be inadvisable given the patient's psychological fragility.'"
"Psychological fragility," I repeated.
"I've never been evaluated for anything like that. Nobody has ever said those words to me or in front of me." He looked at the window. "Those notes went into my file six weeks after the accident. Two weeks before Trevor filed the ownership restructuring."
The whole shape of it clicked at once. "They needed a medical record that showed you weren't competent," I said.
"If I'm judged unable to manage my own affairs — mentally, psychologically — the restructuring gets a lot harder to fight." He turned back to me. "Trevor's been building a case. Not just a legal one. A medical one."
"You need to call Katherine Boyd."
"Already did. This morning." He held up the phone. "She wants a meeting. Not here. At her office."
"When?"
"Monday. She said to come without telling anyone in the house."
I ran the logistics in my head. Monday was Trevor's golf morning — gone by eight, rarely back before noon. Colleen drove Marilyn to her church group at nine.
"I can get you there," I said.
Warren looked at me steadily. "Diane. What I'm about to do — if Trevor finds out before I'm ready, he moves fast. He calls the board, he uses that medical file, he gets me declared—" He stopped. "I need you to understand what you're stepping into."
"I understand."
"Do you? Because the last person who helped me — my accountant, the one who flagged the dividend — he dropped my account two weeks later. No explanation. His office said he'd taken on too many clients."
The room went very quiet.
"I'm not your accountant," I said.
Something moved in Warren's face — not quite relief, but near it.
Monday morning I loaded his wheelchair into the car at seven fifty-five, while Trevor was still finishing breakfast. I told Colleen I was taking Warren for a short drive, that the doctor wanted fresh air and gentle movement. She looked at me with flat eyes and said nothing. We were out of the driveway before eight.
Katherine Boyd's office was on the fourteenth floor of the Hargrove Building downtown. She met us at the elevator — a tall woman in her early sixties, silver-haired, with the kind of stillness that comes from decades in rooms where every word counts. She shook Warren's hand first. Then mine.
"You're the caregiver," she said. "Diane Foster. Warren told me what you did at the clinic." She held the door. "Come in."
We sat across from her desk. She opened a folder. "I've gone through the ownership documents and the medical file you sent. I'll be direct with you, Warren. What Trevor filed is not airtight. The signature on the restructuring agreement has inconsistencies I want a forensic analyst to look at. And the supplemental medical notes — a physician adding records to a patient's file with no patient contact and no disclosure — that's a serious problem."
"Can it be challenged?" Warren asked.
"Yes. But timing matters." She set her pen down. "This board review — when exactly?"
"Five weeks from today."
Katherine nodded slowly. "Then we have five weeks. And Trevor cannot know we've started."
On the drive home Warren was quiet a long time. Then: "Trevor called while we were in her office."
I glanced over.
"I didn't answer. But he'll want to know where we went."
May you like
We turned onto the residential street. The house came into view.
Trevor's car was in the driveway. Golf had ended early.
