Chapter 7
The patient-portal records arrived through legal request.
The Tuesday cancellation had been made from an internet connection registered to Travis’s architectural consulting office.
That did not prove Travis himself typed the message.
Several employees used the network.
But the login happened at 1:07 p.m.
Building-access records showed Travis entered his private office at 12:54 and did not leave until 1:31.
Then investigators reviewed other portal activity.
Two months earlier, an appointment had been moved from morning to afternoon.
Elise remembered that.
Travis told her the obstetrician changed it.
The portal showed the request originated from the same office network.
Six weeks earlier, a message asking about Elise’s fatigue was deleted shortly after a nurse replied.
Same network.
None of those events had caused obvious harm.
That was what made the pattern unsettling.
Small interventions.
Easy explanations.
Enough to keep Elise dependent on information passing through Travis.
Then Jennifer found something outside the medical records.
Elise had attended marriage counseling with Travis twice early in pregnancy.
She stopped because Travis claimed the counselor had no more evening appointments.
Elise called the office.
That was false too.
The counselor had emailed her twice asking whether she wanted to continue.
Those emails had been automatically moved into an archived folder.
Elise’s email filters had been changed.
Travis knew her password.
Again, proof of access.
Not yet proof of who changed it.
But the circle was tightening.
Augusto wanted Travis’s devices seized.
Jennifer stopped him.
“You do not have that authority.”
“I know people who—”
“No.”
Elise was in the room.
Augusto stopped speaking.
Jennifer continued.
“If there is enough evidence for a warrant or discovery order, the proper process gets it.”
Augusto leaned back.
Every instinct in him hated proper process.
Elise watched him.
“Dad.”
He looked at her.
“I need this to be mine.”
The sentence confused him.
“The case?”
“The decision.”
Augusto understood.
His daughter had spent months with one family deciding what she ate, where she went, when she saw a doctor.
Being rescued by another controlling family would not be freedom.
He nodded.
“Then tell me where you want me.”
Elise looked at him for several seconds.
“Beside me.”
May you like
Not in front.
Augusto accepted the distinction.
