Chapter 3 - THE HIDDEN DOSSIER
Midnight in the Sterling mansion was a heavy, suffocating thing.
Lydia lay awake, staring up at the plaster ceiling of her room. The warning Greta had given her echoed relentlessly in her mind, mingling with the memory of Celeste’s razor-thin smile and Dale Hutchins’s calculating eyes. Something was deeply wrong in this house. The level of control Celeste exerted, combined with the heavy medication Roland had been prescribed for six years, painted a picture that went far beyond a devoted wife caring for a disabled husband.
It looked like a cage. A slow, calculated poisoning of a powerful mind.
Driven by an instinct she could no longer ignore, Lydia slipped out of her bed. She didn't put on her shoes; she walked in her thick wool socks across the cold hardwood floor, opening her door with absolute silence.
The third-floor hallway was pitch black. She crept down the service stairs, her hand trailing along the cool wooden banister, aiming for the massive oak-paneled study on the second floor.
Bishop kept the estate’s administrative files there, including personnel records, medical charts, and financial logs. If Lydia wanted to understand why a man like Roland Sterling was trapped in darkness, she needed to see the paperwork.
The study door was unlocked—a careless mistake, or perhaps a trap.
Lydia slipped inside, closing the heavy door behind her with barely a whisper. She pulled a small penlight from her pocket, shielding the beam with her hand so the light wouldn't spill out beneath the door.
Rows of towering bookshelves lined the walls. She scanned the labels: Sterling Enterprises - 2020, 2021, 2022... Financial Audits... Medical Supplies...
She hurried toward the mahogany desk in the center of the room. The drawers were locked, but a small silver key hung innocently on a hook behind a landscape painting. With trembling fingers, Lydia lifted the painting, grabbed the key, and unlocked the center desk drawer.
Inside lay a thick manila folder labeled: ROLAND STERLING - POST-TRAUMA MANAGEMENT & ASSET TRANSFER.
Lydia pulled it open. The beam of her penlight danced across pages of medical reports, psychiatric evaluations, and legal documents.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The psychiatric evaluations—signed by a Dr. Harrison who no longer practiced at any Chicago hospital—stated that Roland Sterling suffered from severe paranoid delusions, cognitive decline, and acute emotional instability following the shooting six years ago.
Recommendation: Complete isolation from external business affairs, continuous administration of sedative-class medication to manage agitation, and transfer of proxy voting rights to his primary legal guardian and spouse, Celeste Sterling.
Lydia’s hands began to shake violently.
It was a lie.
She had spoken to Roland twice. His mind was razor-sharp, calculating, and fully coherent. He was not suffering from cognitive decline; he was being chemically subdued. The medication Celeste was having him fed wasn't meant to help him heal—it was designed to rot his brain from the inside out, keeping him weak, blind, and entirely dependent until Celeste could legally strip him of every last asset of the Sterling empire.
Suddenly, a metallic click echoed from the hallway outside the study door.
Someone was turning the handle.
May you like
Lydia froze. Panic surged through her veins, cold and paralyzing. She grabbed the folder, tried to shove it back into the drawer, but in her haste, a single sheet of paper slipped from her fingers and fluttered down onto the Persian rug.
The heavy oak door began to swing open.
