Chapter 4 - The Doctor’s SecretRachel moved first.
Page after page was written in my handwriting.
Some entries were calm.
Others looked as if I had been fighting the pen.
Tuesday. Rachel told me again. I lost forty-eight hours.
Thursday. Marcus says the scans still don’t make sense.
Saturday. I remembered the lake for nineteen seconds. Then nothing.
The lake.
That word appeared eleven times.
Never explained.
At 5:40 A.M., I was sitting at the kitchen table when Lily came downstairs.
She walked straight to me.
“Did the man leave?”
“Yes.”
“Are you mad at Mommy?”
I looked toward the living room.
Rachel was asleep on the couch.
Marcus had gone home after promising to return that afternoon.
“I’m confused.”
Lily climbed onto the chair beside me.
“Mommy cries sometimes.”
“When?”
“When she thinks you’re sleeping.”
I closed my eyes.
For weeks I had apparently been living inside a tragedy that reset itself every morning.
But that explanation still left holes.
Big ones.
Why had Rachel hidden everything from my family?
Why had my employer said nothing?
Why did the notebook repeatedly mention Michigan?
And why did the sentence about Michigan feel less like a warning and more like a threat?
At nine, Rachel woke.
Neither of us spoke until Lily went to a neighbor’s house.
Then I placed the notebook on the counter.
“Start from the beginning.”
Rachel wrapped both hands around a coffee mug.
“Three months ago, you traveled to northern Michigan for work.”
I frowned.
“I haven’t been to Michigan in years.”
“You have.”
“No.”
She slid her phone toward me.
Photos.
I was standing beside a dark SUV.
Another showed me outside a motel.
Timestamp: May 17.
Three months earlier.
My skin prickled.
“Why was I there?”
“You were investigating a company.”
I worked as a forensic accountant for insurance firms and private companies.
Mostly fraud.
Embezzlement.
Financial misconduct.
Nothing dramatic.
At least that was what I remembered.
“What company?”
“North Harbor Medical.”
The name meant nothing.
Rachel continued.
“They hired your firm to review missing funds. You told me you thought somebody was falsifying patient billing.”
“And?”
“You found something bigger.”
“What?”
“You never told me.”
I stared at her.
“You’re my wife.”
“You said knowing would put us in danger.”
I almost laughed.
“Danger from medical billing?”
“You came home different, Daniel.”
Her voice dropped.
“You barely slept. You checked the locks five times a night. You bought a second phone. You told me someone followed you from Michigan.”
My mind produced nothing.
Not even an image.
“Then you collapsed.”
She nodded.
“The hospital ran scans. That’s when they found the abnormality.”
“Where does Marcus fit?”
“He was the neurologist on call.”
I thought of the masked man leaning over me.
“Convenient.”
Rachel stiffened.
“You think he’s lying?”
“I think everything is impossible right now.”
“Fair.”
“What happened after the hospital?”
“You woke up the next morning and remembered none of the collapse.”
She pulled another notebook from the drawer.
“We thought it was temporary.”
It wasn’t.
My memory loss had become patterned.
Recent memories vanished after sleep.
Older memories stayed intact.
Some days I remembered twenty-four hours.
Other days, almost nothing after May.
Marcus initially suspected the mass was responsible.
Then he discovered something strange.
“The location didn’t match the severity,” Rachel said.
“What does that mean?”
“The abnormality was too small.”
Marcus arrived at noon carrying another folder.
This time, I refused to let him enter until I photographed his identification.
He didn’t complain.
We sat in the dining room.
He opened a laptop.
“Your MRI shows inflammation around the medial temporal region.”
“Tumor?”
“Possibly not.”
“What else?”
“Exposure.”
“To what?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to determine.”
He turned the screen.
Lab results.
“Your blood showed traces of an organophosphate metabolite.”
I stared blankly.
Marcus explained.
“Certain pesticides and nerve agents affect the brain. Some experimental compounds can disrupt memory consolidation.”
Rachel went pale.
“You said the level was insignificant.”
“It should have been.”
“Should?”
He nodded.
“Yesterday I received results from a specialized toxicology lab.”
He looked at me.
“The compound wasn’t accidental.”
My mouth went dry.
“What was it?”
“A modified cholinesterase inhibitor.”
Rachel whispered, “English.”
“Something designed.”
“Designed for what?”
Marcus hesitated.
“To interfere with neurological function.”
I leaned back.
“So somebody poisoned me.”
“That is one possibility.”
“Somebody?”
I looked at Rachel.
Her face changed.
She knew what I was thinking.
“You think I did it.”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“I have spent seven weeks keeping you alive.”
“While lying to me.”
“Because you asked me to!”
“I don’t remember asking!”
Tears flashed in her eyes.
Marcus intervened.
“Stop.”
I looked at him.
He pointed toward the notebook.
“Daniel, three weeks ago you asked me the same question.”
“What question?”
“Who poisoned you.”
“And?”
“You became obsessed with finding out.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“You disappeared for six hours.”
Rachel looked away.
Marcus continued.
“When you returned, you had blood on your shirt.”
I stared at him.
“Whose blood?”
“You didn’t know.”
A chill moved up my spine.
“You told us one thing before you lost consciousness.”
“What?”
Marcus looked at Rachel.
She nodded reluctantly.
“You said, ‘I found him.’”
“Who?”
“You never said.”
I stood.
“Then maybe there’s evidence.”
“We searched your car.”
“My phone?”
“Gone.”
“Computer?”
“Wiped.”
“Office?”
Rachel looked at me.
“You were fired.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Six weeks ago.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“I went to work yesterday.”
“No. You went to the building.”
She pulled out her phone.
“The security guard calls me when you show up.”
I stared at her.
“You let me leave every morning thinking I still have a job?”
“You usually come home before noon. You think you forgot your badge or there’s a technical problem.”
A sick feeling filled my stomach.
My entire life had become theater.
Rachel had been building scenery around my missing memory.
“To protect me?”
“To keep you functional.”
“Or controllable?”
She flinched.
Marcus watched me carefully.
I hated that.
“Stop looking at me like I’m unstable.”
“You are under extraordinary neurological stress.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
I walked upstairs.
Opened my closet.
My suits were still there.
Laptop bag.
Shoes.
Everything designed to make me believe life was normal.
Then I noticed something inside the back of the closet.
A tiny scratch on the wall.
I pulled aside a coat.
There was a square outline in the drywall.
I pressed it.
Nothing.
Then I remembered something from when I renovated the house.
A loose ventilation cover.
I removed it.
Behind it was a black burner phone.
Rachel appeared behind me.
Her face drained of color.
“I’ve never seen that.”
I turned it on.
Battery: 31%.
One saved video.
No contacts.
No messages.
I pressed play.
My own face appeared on the screen.
I looked exhausted.
Terrified.
The timestamp showed seventeen days earlier.
Video-Daniel stared directly into the camera.
“If you’re watching this, you forgot.”
I swallowed.
He continued.
“Do not trust the notebooks completely.”
I looked at Rachel.
Her face went white.
The video continued.
“Rachel is trying to help you.”
She exhaled.
Then video-Daniel said:
“But someone has been changing what you write.”
Marcus stood.
“What?”
I raised the phone.
On the screen, my past self leaned closer.
“And if Marcus Hale is in the room when you see this…”
May you like
Marcus froze.
“…do not let him leave.”
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