Dr. Evans wanted Sarah examined immediately.
Not the next morning. Not after Mia finished speaking with police. Immediately.
Emily drove while Sarah sat in the passenger seat with both hands resting over her abdomen. Every sensation had become suspicious. A tightening she would ordinarily have dismissed made her wonder whether something was wrong. A faint flutter made her hold her breath.
The hospital admitted her through a private entrance after Mia explained the circumstances.
Dr. Evans met them upstairs.
"You are not taking anything except what I personally confirm from this point forward," she said.
Sarah nodded.
"Vitamins?"
"Bring me everything."
"I have them at home."
"Nobody uses them."
Emily was already typing a message to the officer still at the house.
Dr. Evans examined Sarah, checked her blood pressure, ordered blood work and performed another ultrasound.
The screen appeared.
Sarah could not look at first.
Then came the sound.
One heartbeat.
A second.
She began crying before Dr. Evans said anything.
"Both babies are active."
Sarah covered her face.
"Are you sure?"
"I am looking at them."
"Could the medication have hurt them?"
"We don't know whether you ever took it."
"But if I did?"
"Sarah."
Dr. Evans waited until she looked at her.
"We investigate facts in order. Right now the fact I can give you is that both fetuses appear viable and appropriately active."
Sarah nodded.
It was not reassurance about the past.
It was enough for that minute.
Mia arrived carrying photographs of the pharmacy receipts.
The medication had been purchased repeatedly over fourteen months.
Some dates overlapped periods when Sarah was undergoing fertility treatment.
The prescribing physician's name meant nothing to her.
Dr. Evans recognized it.
"Dr. Leonard Price."
"Who is he?" Mia asked.
"Internal medicine. Private practice."
"Did Sarah ever see him?"
Sarah shook her head.
"Never."
Dr. Evans studied the receipt.
"Then somebody needs to establish who the actual patient was."
Mia had already started.
The pharmacy was local.
More important, the receipts contained partial transaction identifiers.
By the following afternoon, investigators had confirmed that Derek paid for several of the purchases using a card connected to one of the accounts Mia had traced.
That proved payment.
It did not prove Sarah had swallowed anything.
The distinction mattered.
Mia repeated it every time Sarah's fear moved ahead of the evidence.
At the hotel, Sarah lined up every medication and supplement she had brought from home.
Prenatal vitamins.
Iron.
A bottle of magnesium.
An old fertility supplement she no longer used.
Nothing matched the medication on the receipts.
Emily examined each container.
"Could he have switched pills?"
Sarah looked at her.
"I don't know."
"Would you have noticed?"
"I want to say yes."
She picked up the vitamin bottle.
The capsules were ordinary.
Opaque.
No markings.
Sarah's stomach tightened.
"He used to fill my pill organizer."
Emily looked up sharply.
"When?"
"During treatment."
"Why?"
"He said I was forgetting doses."
"Were you?"
Sarah tried to remember.
Fertility treatment had involved appointments, injections, supplements and carefully timed medication.
Derek liked systems.
He bought the weekly organizer.
He labeled compartments.
He sometimes handed Sarah pills with breakfast.
"I thought he was helping."
Emily sat back.
Sarah immediately regretted saying it.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it sounded like another indictment of her judgment.
Emily seemed to understand.
"You were supposed to be able to accept help from your husband."
Sarah looked away.
The following morning, Mia called.
"We found the pharmacist."
Sarah sat upright.
"Does she remember Derek?"
"She remembers something."
The woman was named Helen Ramirez.
She had worked at the pharmacy for eleven years.
Mia arranged for investigators to interview her formally, but Helen agreed to speak with Sarah afterward.
They met in Mia's office.
Helen entered carrying a large handbag and wearing the uneasy expression of someone who had spent all morning reconsidering old memories.
"I'm sorry," she said before sitting.
Sarah did not know what to do with that.
"For what?"
"I don't know yet."
Helen placed her hands together.
"I remember your husband."
"Why?"
"He complained."
That sounded like Derek.
"About what?"
"The tablets."
Sarah leaned forward.
Helen explained that Derek had initially collected the medication exactly as prescribed.
Several weeks later, he returned asking whether the pharmacy could provide it in a different form.
"What kind of form?"
"Something easier to mix into food."
The room became very quiet.
Sarah felt Mia's eyes on her.
Helen continued.
"I told him we couldn't alter a prescription without authorization."
"What did he say?"
"He said his mother had trouble swallowing pills."
Sarah's breath caught.
Margaret.
Mia asked, "Was the prescription in Margaret Collins's name?"
"No."
"Whose?"
Helen hesitated.
"Victor Shaw."
Sarah stared.
The pieces shifted.
Victor had been the official patient.
Derek had paid.
And Derek had asked how to disguise the medication.
"Did you give him anything?"
"No."
"Did he ask about crushing tablets?"
"Yes."
Sarah closed her eyes.
Helen's voice softened.
"I told him some medications shouldn't be crushed and he needed to consult the prescriber."
"Did he?"
"I don't know."
Mia asked, "Did you document that conversation?"
Helen nodded.
"I found the note after the police contacted the pharmacy."
Sarah looked at her.
"What exactly does it say?"
Helen had brought a copy.
Patient representative asked whether tablets may be crushed or dissolved. Advised against modification pending physician approval.
Representative.
Derek.
Sarah's palms became damp.
"Anything else?"
Helen hesitated.
"There was another visit."
"When?"
"About eight months later."
"What happened?"
"He brought a woman."
Sarah already knew.
"Jessica?"
Helen had been shown photographs.
"Yes."
Sarah looked toward the window.
"What did they ask?"
"Whether the medication could be detected in routine blood work."
Mia stopped writing.
Helen continued.
"I thought they were concerned about interactions."
"Did they say why?"
"She did most of the talking."
Sarah forced herself to ask.
"What did Jessica say?"
Helen swallowed.
"She said they were helping someone who refused treatment."
Emily, seated near the wall, whispered, "God."
Mia asked, "What did you tell them?"
"That routine testing wasn't necessarily designed to identify every medication."
Sarah felt cold.
"So Jessica knew."
Helen looked confused.
"Knew what?"
Sarah did not answer.
Jessica had claimed she knew only pieces.
This was not a piece.
She had stood beside Derek and asked whether a drug could be detected.
Mia ended the meeting soon afterward.
Once Helen left, Sarah said, "Jessica lied to us."
"Yes."
"Again."
"Yes."
"Why are we still treating her like a witness?"
"We aren't."
Sarah looked at Mia.
"We're treating her like someone whose interests occasionally overlap with ours."
The distinction mattered.
Sarah called Jessica.
Mia allowed it only on speaker and recorded through proper channels.
Jessica answered on the fourth ring.
"Sarah?"
"You went to the pharmacy with Derek."
Silence.
Sarah waited.
Jessica finally said, "Who told you?"
"Did you?"
Another silence.
"Yes."
Emily stood and walked away from the table.
Sarah kept her voice controlled.
"You asked whether the medication could be detected in blood tests."
"I didn't know it was for you."
"Who did you think it was for?"
"Victor."
"Why would Victor refuse medication he was prescribed?"
Jessica said nothing.
"Jessica."
"Derek told me Victor had anxiety about taking it."
Sarah almost laughed.
"You believed that?"
"At the time."
"You asked how detectable it was."
"He asked me to."
"And you did whatever he asked."
"No."
"Enough."
Jessica began crying.
Sarah felt nothing.
"Did Derek ever put medication in my food?"
"I never saw him."
"That's not what I asked."
"I don't know."
"Did he discuss it?"
Jessica breathed unevenly.
"Once."
Emily turned back.
Mia leaned closer.
Sarah asked, "What did he say?"
"He made a joke."
"What joke?"
"He said you were easier to manage when you didn't know what you were taking."
Sarah's hand tightened around the phone.
"Did you ask what that meant?"
"I thought he meant fertility medication."
"Did you ask?"
"No."
Sarah ended the call.
The room remained silent.
Mia finally said, "We still need proof."
Sarah nodded.
She understood.
Words were not enough.
Receipts were not enough.
Questions at a pharmacy were not enough.
Then Emily remembered something.
"The freezer."
Sarah turned.
"What?"
"When I stayed with you during your second treatment cycle, you froze everything."
Sarah frowned.
"I don't remember."
"You were convinced the medication was making you nauseated. You made smoothies because solid food bothered you."
Sarah remembered gradually.
Berries.
Yogurt.
Protein powder.
Derek preparing portions in advance.
"He made them."
Emily nodded.
"And you froze leftovers in those little containers."
Sarah stood.
The house had a garage freezer they rarely emptied completely.
Police were contacted.
Nobody touched anything until investigators arrived.
At the bottom of the freezer, beneath old vegetables and packages of meat, they found three small containers labeled with dates from nearly two years earlier.
The contents were freezer-burned and partly separated.
But they still existed.
Samples were sent for testing.
Sarah waited four days.
Four days in which Derek remained missing.
Victor had retained counsel and refused further interviews.
Jessica stopped answering calls.
Margaret publicly insisted her son was being persecuted by a vindictive wife.
The black Tahoe vanished.
On the fourth evening, Mia came to the hotel.
Sarah knew from her face.
"They found it."
Emily closed the door.
Sarah remained standing.
"In the food?"
Mia nodded.
"One sample."
Sarah pressed a hand against the table.
"How much?"
"Enough to confirm the medication was present."
The room seemed to tilt.
Sarah whispered, "He drugged me."
Mia did not correct her.
For once there was no warning about conclusions.
The laboratory had found the medication in food Derek prepared for her.
Sarah sat.
Emily knelt beside her.
Mia placed another report on the table.
"There's more."
Sarah almost laughed.
There was always more.
"What?"
"The sample wasn't just positive for that medication."
Sarah looked up.
"What else?"
"A sedative."
Sarah stared.
"I wasn't prescribed one."
"We know."
The report documented both substances.
Sarah remembered evenings when she became overwhelmingly tired after dinner.
Derek telling her fertility treatment was exhausting her.
Derek helping her upstairs.
Derek taking her phone because she needed rest.
She whispered, "What was he doing while I was asleep?"
Nobody answered.
Then Sarah remembered the old emails Derek somehow possessed.
Her passwords.
Her private messages.
The photographs.
The financial records.
The missing medical notifications.
She had been searching for the moment Derek gained access to her private life.
Now she understood there may not have been one moment.
There had been nights.
Many of them.
Sarah looked at Mia.
"I want him found."
Mia's expression did not change.
"So do the police."
Her phone rang.
She checked the screen.
Then answered.
After less than a minute, she looked at Sarah.
"Derek's car has been located."
"Where?"
"Airport parking."
Sarah's stomach tightened.
"Did he leave the country?"
"No."
"Then where is he?"
Mia listened.
Her face changed.
"The car was abandoned yesterday."
Sarah stood.
Mia ended the call.
"They found blood inside."
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Blood in Derek’s Abandoned Car Made Him Look Like a Victim, Until the Evidence Showed Someone Had Carefully Designed That Story Too
Two Pink Lines Should Have Saved Our Marriage, but Derek Looked at Them and Decided They Proved I Had Betrayed Him
Part 9 of 20
