Tamara was already waiting in her open doorway. “Come in, honey. We’ve got a serious talk ahead of us.” Her apartment smelled faintly of lavender and strong tea. Old black-and-white photographs hung on the walls, and the shelves were packed with books and little figurines.
Tamara pointed Eleanor toward the couch and lowered herself into the armchair across from her. “Start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
And Eleanor told her everything in one rush. The accident. The diagnosis. The months of exhausting care. Mike’s nighttime sighting. The message from “Z.”
Tamara listened without interrupting, only nodding now and then as if each new detail confirmed what she already suspected. “I always had a feeling something about him didn’t add up,” she said at last.
“I noticed the way he watched people when he thought no one was looking. Too alert. Too calculating for a man supposedly trapped in bed.”
“But why would he do this?” Eleanor asked. “What’s the payoff?”
Tamara folded her hands. “First possibility: insurance fraud. That’s the obvious one. You said he gets regular payments, right?”
“Yes. Big ones.”
“There’s your motive. Second possibility: he’s hiding something that requires him to come and go at night. Being ‘bedridden’ gives him perfect cover.”
“Cover for what?” Eleanor asked.
“Don’t know yet. But right now you need hard proof.”
“The footprints are something, but not enough. He can say you planted them or imagined it because you’re exhausted.”
“So what do I do?” Eleanor asked, clenching her hands.
“First, act normal. He cannot suspect you know. Second, we need a hidden camera.”
“A video of him getting up and walking is the kind of proof he can’t talk his way around.”
“Where am I supposed to get a hidden camera?” Eleanor asked.
“I’ve got an old one I used after some package thefts in the building,” Tamara said. “Not fancy, but it works. Motion activated. Hooks up to a laptop.”
She opened a cabinet and took out a small plastic device about the size of a lighter. “Here. Hide it in the bedroom where he won’t notice it. On a shelf, behind something. Just make sure it points at the bed.”
Eleanor took the camera carefully. “What if he finds it?”
“Then you say it’s basically a baby monitor setup because you worry about him when you’re at work. That’ll track.”
Eleanor nodded. The plan was starting to feel real.
“One more thing,” Tamara said, fixing her with a direct look. “You need to get those medical images. If he keeps them in the apartment, bring them to me. I know a trauma doctor at the county hospital who can look at them.”
Eleanor remembered Susan asking the same question about the scans and nodded again. “I’ll find them if I can.”
“And brace yourself,” Tamara added. “The truth may be worse than what you’re imagining.”
“I’m ready,” Eleanor said, and to her own surprise, she meant it. “I need the truth—for me and for my son.”
Tamara gave an approving nod. “Good. Go home. Be normal. Tomorrow we’ll get that camera set up.”
Eleanor returned to her apartment. Owen was still in the bedroom. Mike was quietly playing in his room. She went into the kitchen and started making dinner, chopping vegetables with hands that still trembled a little.
But underneath the fear, something new had taken hold…
