Chapter 11 - Dr. Wallace
Rachel told Marcus not to contact Wallace directly.
“I have an investigator who can verify credentials,” she said.
Within a day, the answer returned.
Gregory Wallace had a doctorate.
But not in clinical psychology.
He held an online doctorate in organizational leadership.
He operated a “family behavior consulting” business and carefully avoided calling himself a licensed psychologist on his website.
Yet his report was written to look clinical.
“How did Camille find him?” Marcus asked.
Rachel forwarded another document.
“She paid him through your joint account.”
The payment was $2,400.
Marcus remembered it.
Camille had told him it was for new dining-room chairs.
He laughed bitterly.
Apparently the dining room had cost far more than furniture.
Darren provided another clue.
“Camille met Wallace through a parents’ forum,” he said. “She used to complain that real therapists always sided with Maya.”
Marcus looked at him.
“She said that?”
“Yeah.”
“Did it not concern you?”
Darren rubbed his face.
“A lot concerns me now.”
Darren had begun selling restaurant equipment to repay the money Camille transferred.
Marcus had not forgiven him.
But he believed Darren had been manipulated rather than actively involved in mistreating Maya.
There was still a price for choosing not to ask questions when money was convenient.
That afternoon Camille arrived at the house with Rachel’s approval to collect clothing and personal belongings.
Marcus ensured Maya was at his sister Renee’s house.
Camille entered quietly.
She stopped at the pantry.
The lock was gone.
“You removed it.”
“Yes.”
“You’re making everything symbolic.”
“You made it symbolic.”
Camille looked away.
She packed two suitcases.
Marcus stood in the hallway.
“Where is Elena’s blue box?”
Camille’s hands stopped.
“I don’t know.”
“Maya saw you take it.”
Her shoulders tightened.
“Then ask Maya. Apparently she knows everything.”
“Where is it?”
Camille turned.
“You want to know what I hate most?”
Marcus said nothing.
“You look at me like I’m a stranger.”
“I’m trying to figure out whether I ever knew you.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You knew me until your daughter decided I was evil.”
“This started before she told me anything.”
“You think I woke up one morning wanting to hurt her?”
“I think you started resenting her and kept justifying the next thing.”
Camille’s face shifted.
For a moment, her anger gave way to something closer to shame.
Then it disappeared.
“I put the box in storage.”
“Which storage?”
She hesitated.
“Pinecrest Storage. Unit 214.”
Marcus wrote it down.
“Key?”
Camille removed one from her ring.
She dropped it onto the console table.
“You always kept Elena like a saint.”
“She was Maya’s mother.”
“And I was supposed to live inside her life.”
“No one asked you to erase yours.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Camille zipped her suitcase.
“This whole house was hers first.”
Marcus understood then.
Not completely.
But enough.
The garden.
The photographs.
The pantry.
The old books.
Maya’s face.
Camille had walked into a family that had lost someone and interpreted memory as competition.
She had tried to win against a dead woman.
And when she could not, she targeted the living reminder.
At the storage facility, Marcus opened Unit 214.
The blue metal box sat near the back.
So did something else.
Three cardboard boxes labeled:
MAYA — SCHOOL
MAYA — MEDICAL
MAYA — INCIDENTS
Marcus opened the last one.
Inside were printed emails, photographs, handwritten logs, and copies of the edited video transcripts.
Camille had built a paper history of Maya’s supposed instability.
At the bottom was a draft letter addressed to Marcus.
He began reading.
It was meant to be sent after Maya entered residential school.
Marcus, I know today feels impossible, but we finally chose our marriage. For the first time, we can build a life that isn’t controlled by Maya’s behavior or Elena’s shadow.
Marcus stopped.
Then he saw the next paragraph.
The realtor says if we list the house immediately, we can close before Christmas.
The plan had been further along than he knew.
There was already a realtor.
May you like
There was already a proposed listing date.
There was already a future being built around Maya’s absence.
