Chương 7
A man in scrubs ate a sandwich while standing.
Ordinary life kept happening beneath the thing that had just opened under my feet.
“What else did the messages say?”
Phedra’s voice came from behind me.
“That you couldn’t afford treatment.”
I turned.
She was watching me now.
“That I should listen to your mother because she understood the finances.”
I sat down slowly.
“What account?”
“Your old messaging app.”
“I stopped using it after I changed phones.”
“I know.”
“Did it show dates?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After I got sick.”
I reached for my phone.
Then stopped.
Marcus’s warning came back.
Do not move anything until we secure it.
Do not discuss the settlement with anyone who might have access to your banking information.
The old phone had once been linked to my email.
My bank alerts.
My cloud account.
Everything.
“Where is that phone now?”
Phedra swallowed.
“When I went back for it the next day, it was gone.”
“Who knew you found it?”
“No one.”
“Someone did.”
A knock came at the door.
Dr. Patel entered carrying a tablet.
I put the phone back in my pocket.
Her expression gave nothing away, which frightened me immediately.
She sat beside the bed.
“The imaging answered some questions.”
Phedra reached for my hand before the doctor continued.
The cancer had progressed.
There were still treatment options, but the plan would need to be more aggressive than it might have been months earlier.
Dr. Patel was careful not to turn probability into promise.
She spoke about stabilizing Phedra first, rebuilding strength, consulting oncology, and deciding what her body could tolerate.
Phedra listened without interrupting.
I asked too many questions.
Some of them were the same question wearing different clothes.
Finally, Phedra squeezed my fingers.
“Damian.”
I stopped.
Dr. Patel gave us a moment.
After she left, Phedra stared at the ceiling.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She turned toward me.
“You keep saying that like it means you can carry it.”
I had no answer.
Tears slid into the hollow near her ear.
“I’m scared I waited too long.”
“You didn’t choose this.”
“I chose some of it.”
“Not enough to deserve it.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
She wiped her face angrily.
“I kept hoping somebody else would make the right decision.”
The words stayed between us.
She was not only talking about Selina.
I looked down at our joined hands.
“So did I.”
That night, after Phedra finally slept, I went downstairs to the hospital café and called Marcus.
I told him about the old phone.
His tone changed immediately.
“Do you still control the email associated with it?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t think.”
“I can log in.”
“From a device you trust?”
“Yes.”
“Change the password, enable multifactor authentication, sign out every other session, and review recovery information.”
I did it while he stayed on the line.
Then I saw something that made my fingers go numb.
A recovery email had been added eighteen months earlier.
It was not mine.
I recognized the address.
It belonged to Godfrey.
For a few seconds, I could only stare at the address.
Marcus said my name twice before I answered.
“That email belongs to my brother.”
“Has he ever had permission to access this account?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Then stop touching anything except what I tell you to document.”
I took screenshots of the recovery settings, the dates, the connected devices, and the security history.
There had been logins from locations near home while I was thousands of miles away.
Some matched times I had been working overnight shifts in Calgary.
One device had remained trusted for nearly two years.
Marcus told me to save everything somewhere Godfrey could not reach.
I created a new encrypted folder and sent copies to a secure address Marcus gave me.
Then he said, “You need a lawyer where you are.”
“I have a lawyer.”
“You have me for the settlement.”
“I thought lawyers were lawyers.”
“That’s how people end up needing more lawyers.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
He gave me the name of a local attorney he knew through a professional network and warned me again not to confront Godfrey yet.
“Especially not if he thinks you’re about to receive a large amount of money.”
“He does.”
Marcus went quiet.
“You told him?”
“I needed him interested.”
“That is either clever or extremely stupid.”
“Probably both.”
“Good.”
“What’s good?”
“That you know that.”
I ended the call and sat alone at a café table while an employee wiped chairs around me.
The overhead lights had been dimmed.
A pastry case contained one lonely blueberry muffin with a discount sticker on it.
I bought the muffin for no reason and ate half before realizing I was not hungry.
At six the next morning, I met the attorney Marcus had recommended.
Her name was Lena Ortiz.
She worked from a second-floor office above a pharmacy, and the waiting room smelled faintly of printer toner and peppermint tea.
I expected someone intimidating.
Instead, she wore sneakers beneath a charcoal suit and apologized because the coffee machine had broken.
Then she spent forty minutes making me uncomfortable.
That was how I knew she was useful.
“Why were you sending money to your mother’s account instead of an account held jointly with your wife?”
“Convenience.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I trusted her.”
“Better.”
She wrote something down.
“Did your mother have written instructions for the funds?”
“No.”
“Any messages describing what the money was for?”
“Yes.”
“How specific?”
“House expenses, renovations, Phedra, savings.”
“Savings in whose name?”
I paused.
“I assumed mine.”
Lena looked up.
“Assumptions are expensive.”
“I’m learning.”
“Good.”
She asked whether I had ever authorized Godfrey to use the money for his business.
No.
Whether I had signed any loan papers.
No.
Whether I had guaranteed any leases.
No.
Whether I had shared banking passwords.
Not knowingly.
Whether Godfrey had physical access to old devices.
Yes.
Whether Selina did.
May you like
Possibly.
Lena tapped her pen against the legal pad.
