Exhibit C: Text from last night (9:30 PM)

“She’s whining about the cold. I told her to zip it. If she comes to the door again, ignore her. She needs to learn her place in the pecking order. The boys are asleep and I won’t have her waking them.”

Dr. Khalani read the messages, her expression shifting from professional concern to horror. “They called the boys ‘the real grandchildren’?”

“They did.”

Dale arrived twenty minutes later. He had driven himself, defying his surgeon’s orders, hobbling into the ER on his walker. When he saw Meadow hooked up to the monitors, looking so fragile, he collapsed into the chair beside her.