Chapter 13 - The Voicemail
The voicemail lasted forty-two seconds.
Evelyn sounded weak but clear.
She said Dererick had arrived with estate documents.
He insisted she drink tea because she appeared tired.
Afterward, her arms became heavy.
She attempted to call Anna, but Dererick took her phone.
Evelyn locked herself in the bathroom and called Rebecca from an old landline.
The message ended with a noise outside the door.
Then Evelyn whispered:
“He has a key.”
Rebecca’s office system archived voicemail automatically.
But because Evelyn called after business hours and did not leave her full name, the recording had never been connected to the estate.
Anna listened once.
She could not listen again.
Dererick’s attorney argued that the voicemail proved only suspicion.
Vale claimed Evelyn mixed medications accidentally.
Then forensic analysis of the numbered bottle from the black bag revealed Dererick’s fingerprint beneath the label.
Vale’s records showed he had obtained the drug through a fraudulent clinical trial.
Three patients had reported unexplained memory loss.
One had died after a fall.
The investigation expanded beyond Anna’s family.
Vale had been supplying sedatives to wealthy clients’ relatives and producing evaluations used in guardianship disputes.
Dererick was one of several people who paid him.
The scheme targeted older adults and spouses with valuable assets.
Vale created diagnoses.
Relatives obtained control.
Assets disappeared.
Evelyn was not the first victim.
Anna was intended to be the next.
Federal investigators joined the case.
They seized Vale’s clinic servers.
Inside were files categorized by initials.
E.H.
A.H.
And eleven other people.
Some were still alive.
Two were living under court-ordered guardianships controlled by relatives who had hired Vale.
Anna’s survival exposed them all.
Reporters began gathering outside the courthouse.
The story was no longer about a strange incident in a suburban bedroom.
It was about a network that converted trust into evidence and medicine into control.
Dererick requested a private meeting with prosecutors.
He offered information about Vale in exchange for reduced charges.
But his proposal contained one condition.
He wanted immunity in Evelyn’s death.
Prosecutors refused.
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Then Dererick made a new claim.
He said Melissa administered the fatal dose.
