But not all of it.
Judge Mercer asked Dr. Avery to explain.
Silver Pines Senior Support presented itself as a respectable elder-care consulting company.
Families hired it to arrange home care, assisted living and financial planning.
Dr. Avery had briefly consulted for the company before resigning.
“Why did you resign?” the judge asked.
Avery hesitated.
“Because I became uncomfortable with the number of guardianship referrals.”
Hale objected.
Judge Mercer overruled him.
Avery continued.
“Families were encouraged to seek guardianship much earlier than medically necessary.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know who designed the program.”
I did.
Or at least I suspected.
That suspicion began six weeks earlier.
I had been sitting alone in a motel room after Daniel changed my locks.
Most people would have called the police first.
I called my former business partner.
Her name was Naomi Brooks.
Naomi had run Vance Forensic Advisory with me for fourteen years.
She was sixty-three, relentless and incapable of accepting the sentence “probably a coincidence.”
I told her everything.
She listened quietly.
Then said, “Send me Hale’s name.”
Two days later she called back.
Her first sentence was:
“Eleanor, your problem isn’t your son.”
I was insulted.
“He shoved me into a wall, Naomi.”
