That night, after Evelyn had been evaluated and placed back on a medically supervised treatment plan, Detective Collins returned to the house with legal authority for a more extensive search. In Brenda's room, investigators found additional financial records and a planner documenting payments associated with Evelyn's accounts. There were references to another elderly woman, Helen Crawford, and a former client named Frank Whitmore, both of whom had died while receiving care through the same agency.
The discovery did not prove that Brenda had killed them, and Collins refused to say otherwise. But it showed enough concerning similarities to justify reopening parts of the earlier investigations and contacting the families. In each case, there had been questions about account withdrawals, changed contacts, and the circumstances surrounding the final months of care. For the first time, the investigators had a living witness whose story could direct them toward records they had not previously obtained.
Collins also found a page on which Brenda had calculated expected payments and marked a date several months ahead. Beside the figures she had written the word leave, underlined twice. The note might have several explanations, and Collins did not mistake suspicion for proof. But combined with the unusual purchases and the way Evelyn's financial access had been restricted, it suggested that Brenda had been planning far beyond ordinary caregiving duties.
At the hospital, a physician explained to Evelyn what could be established and what could not. The tablets collected from her home would be tested, her prescriptions verified, and her heart monitored while the correct medication was restored under medical supervision. The doctor did not promise that every symptom would disappear. He told her she had done the right thing by seeking help when she realized something was wrong.
Evelyn had not expected those words to affect her so strongly. She began crying in the examination room, not because she thought she was about to die but because someone had spoken to her as a competent adult. The physician waited until she was ready to continue. Then he asked the question Brenda had almost managed to erase from her life: what would she like to happen next?
"I want to sleep somewhere I can lock the door from the inside," Evelyn said. "And I want to call my daughter."
By the time Bear came to see her, the sky beyond the hospital windows had turned dark blue. He had removed his leather vest and carried a paper bag from Joe's containing a slice of pie the cook had insisted on sending. Evelyn thanked him, then said that the most difficult part of the day was still ahead of her. Bear understood without asking. There was one voice she wanted to hear more than any other, and she was afraid that seven years of wounded pride had made it unreachable.
"We can help you find the right number," he said. "Then you decide whether to call. Nobody else gets to make that choice for you."
Evelyn looked at the photograph of Walt beside her hospital bed. He was smiling in the picture, his arm around her shoulders, both of them squinting into sunlight in front of the garden. She remembered his final request to stand up for what was right and wondered whether that included admitting she had been wrong about the people she loved. She asked Bear for a telephone.