Chapter 5 - The ICU Confession
I arrived at the local hospital an hour later. Sarah had been moved to the Intensive Care Unit. The doctors had hooked her up to a web of IVs—fluids, heavy-duty antibiotics, and potassium drips. She looked impossibly fragile against the stark white hospital sheets, her collarbones sharp and jutting.
I sat in the plastic chair beside her bed, holding her uninjured hand.
"He's in custody, sweetheart," I said gently. "Bail was denied for the weekend. He can't get to you."
Sarah’s eyes fluttered open. The heavy doses of sedatives Mark had been force-feeding her were finally beginning to cycle out of her system. She looked at me, her eyes filling with tears of pure relief.
"I thought I was going to die down there, Mom," she whispered, her voice still raspy from dehydration. "He... he told me that nobody was looking for me. He said he had everyone convinced I was at the ashram."
"He underestimated us," I said, kissing her knuckles. "Why did he do this, Sarah? You two were perfectly fine a month ago."
Sarah closed her eyes, a shudder running through her frail body. "I found out he was broke, Mom. His investment firm is a massive Ponzi scheme. He lost millions of his clients' money. He was facing federal indictments."
The pieces clicked together in my detective's brain with sickening clarity. "The trust fund," I realized. "Your father's money."
Sarah nodded weakly. "He demanded I sign the entire trust over to him to cover his tracks. When I refused, he snapped. He hit me, dragged me down the stairs, and chained me. He said... he said if I wouldn't give him the money alive, he would just inherit it when I was dead."
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A cold, homicidal fury washed over me. Mark wasn't just a domestic abuser. He was a cornered white-collar criminal who had resorted to torture to save his own skin.
"He's never seeing the light of day again," I promised her. "Rest now. Mama's on the case."
