Chapter 5: The Doctor Who Knew First
Forsythe didn't run.
That was the first thing Charlotte noticed.
He stood in the elevator doorway for three full seconds, looking at her, and then he stepped forward as though he had somewhere to be.
"Ms.
Vale," he said.
His voice was practiced.
Smooth.
The voice of a man who delivered difficult news for a living.
"I heard you were in the building."
"I'm sure you did," Charlotte said.
"You've had about twenty minutes to decide what to say to me."
Something shifted in his expression.
Just slightly.
"I came to speak with the board," he said.
"Which board?" Charlotte said.
"The one my mother built?
Or the one Vivienne assembled after my mother died?"
Forsythe glanced at Daniel, who had come to stand just behind Charlotte's left shoulder with the briefcase.
"I think," Forsythe said carefully, "that there are things you don't fully understand yet."
"I understand that you told Vivienne Holt my mother's diagnosis six months before my mother told me." Charlotte kept her voice even.
"I understand that's a violation of patient confidentiality.
I understand that it gave Vivienne time to prepare.
And I understand that you're in this building today, which means someone called you."
Forsythe was quiet.
"Who called you?" Charlotte asked.
"I'm not at liberty —"
"Vivienne," Charlotte said.
"She called you twenty minutes ago.
You were already on your way here, which means you didn't come from far.
Which means you've been close to this building all morning." She took one step toward him.
"You knew I was coming today."
Forsythe's document case shifted under his arm.
"There were circumstances," he said, "surrounding your mother's care that are more complicated than —"
"Did she ask you to keep it from me?"
He stopped.
"My mother," Charlotte said.
"Did she ask you not to tell me how serious it was?"
A long pause.
"She wanted to protect you," Forsythe said.
And for the first time, his voice lost its professional polish.
"She said you had already lost your father.
She wasn't ready for you to start losing her."
Charlotte looked at him.
She had expected denial.
She had prepared for it on the elevator ride down in her mind, the argument she would make, the documents she would cite.
She had not prepared for that.
"That doesn't excuse what you told Vivienne," Charlotte said.
"No," Forsythe said quietly.
"It doesn't."
"Did my mother know you told her?"
He shook his head.
Once.
Small.
"Vivienne approached me eight months before your mother passed," he said.
"She presented it as concern.
As a close friend wanting to make arrangements, to be prepared.
I believed her." He stopped.
"I was wrong to believe her.
I understood that too late."
"How late?" Charlotte asked.
Forsythe looked at the floor.
"The week after the funeral.
When I saw what she did with the board."
"And you said nothing."
"I was afraid," he said.
Simply.
Without dressing it up.
Charlotte studied him for a moment.
"Are you still afraid?" she asked.
Forsythe looked up.
His eyes moved to the briefcase in Daniel's hand.
Then back to Charlotte.
"I have documentation," he said.
"Of every conversation Vivienne had with me.
I kept records.
I don't know why — I think I knew, even then, that something was wrong." He reached into his document case and produced a small sealed folder.
"I've been carrying this for six months.
Not knowing who to give it to."
Charlotte took the folder.
She didn't open it.
She passed it directly to Daniel.
"Add it to the file," she said.
Daniel took it without a word.
Charlotte looked back at Forsythe.
"You're going to need to repeat everything you just told me in front of witnesses.
In writing.
Under oath if it comes to that."
"I know," he said.
"And you're going to need to tell them exactly what you told Vivienne, and when, and how she used it."
"I know," he said again.
Charlotte held his gaze for one more moment.
Then she stepped around him toward the elevator.
"Ms.
Vale," Forsythe said.
She paused.
"Your mother talked about you," he said.
"In her appointments.
When she was frightened, she talked about you.
She said — " He stopped.
Cleared his throat.
"She said you were the only thing she built that she was certain she'd gotten right."
Charlotte's hand found the elevator button.
She pressed it.
"Come upstairs in ten minutes," she said.
"Bring whatever else you have."
The doors opened.
She stepped inside.
As they closed, she caught one last glimpse of the lobby — the marble floor, the orchids, the chandeliers.
The place where Vivienne had dragged her like she was nothing.
Charlotte reached into her jacket and felt the edge of her mother's envelope.
Ten minutes.
Then she would read it.
First, the boardroom.
May you like
The elevator began to rise.
On the twelfth floor, someone was waiting — and they didn't know yet that the doctor, the documents, and the daughter had all arrived at the same time.
