Chapter 4 - The Doctor Vanessa Kept Talking About Didn’t Exist
That night, after I put Emily to bed in the guest room beside mine and asked Miriam to stay with her, I started verifying everything Vanessa had told me over the past six weeks.
Her first lie broke in under ten minutes.
Vanessa had repeatedly mentioned a private obstetrician in downtown Bellevue. She had told me the doctor was discreet, expensive, and had advised “low-stress management,” which was why I supposedly couldn’t accompany her to most visits. It had sounded odd, but not impossible. That was the danger of marrying someone who lied with confidence—she made suspicion feel rude.
I called the clinic’s after-hours line and used an old client privilege to get the office manager to confirm whether Vanessa had ever been seen there.
No.
No intake file.
No billing record.
No appointment.
No canceled visit.
Nothing.
I sat alone in my study staring at the wall for a long time after that. Then I called my attorney, Alan, who had handled parts of my divorce settlement and the later marital property revisions when Vanessa and I married. I asked him to come over first thing in the morning and to bring every draft Vanessa had recently pushed regarding trust amendments.
There was a long pause on the line.
“Caleb,” he said carefully, “is this about the baby clause?”
My stomach tightened. “What baby clause?”
He hesitated just a fraction too long.
May you like
And in that hesitation, I understood that while I had been ignoring the emotional clues inside my own home, Vanessa had been very busy rearranging the legal future around me.
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