Chapter 6 - The Private Asylum
Douglas stared down at the documents on the table. His hands shook as he picked up the first page. It was an intake form from an unlicensed, highly illegal private psychiatric facility hidden deep in the state's rural mountains.
"For eight months," Detective Vance explained, his voice ringing through the silent ballroom, "Caroline Mercer was held completely against her will in a padded room. She was heavily sedated, denied proper burn care, and stripped of her identity. They registered her under a Jane Doe. She only managed to escape three days ago by breaking a window and walking twenty miles barefoot to a police precinct."
Tears streamed down Caroline’s scarred face, but she didn't look away from her sister. She had survived hell.
Douglas felt his knees buckle. "Who... who would do this? Why didn't the hospital tell me she survived the fire?"
Detective Vance reached into his briefcase one last time. He pulled out two items. The first was a plastic hospital wristband, cut and stained with soot.
The second was a heavy, official death certificate bearing the golden seal of the state.
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"The hospital didn't tell you, Mr. Mercer," Detective Vance said, his eyes locking onto the terrified bride, "because the person who claimed her body and signed her official death certificate intercepted the ambulance."
👉 Whose signature is at the bottom of Caroline's forged death certificate?
