Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Said She Saw Me Driving Alone
Dana Parker came to the hospital voluntarily.
That surprised Detective Shaw.
It surprised me more.
People who fabricate crash testimony usually avoid rooms containing the person they helped bury.
Dana did the opposite.
She asked to speak with Raymond.
Then with me.
Her attorney sat beside her.
She wore a black cardigan and no makeup.
Nothing like the polished woman I remembered from Travis's company holiday dinners.
She looked frightened.
“Lauren.”
I said nothing.
Dana's mouth tightened.
“I lied.”
Good opening.
“Why?”
“Travis told me to.”
“Why?”
“He said you had tried to hurt yourself.”
Chloe inhaled beside the window.
I stared at Dana.
“He told you I deliberately drove off the road?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
“At first.”
“When?”
“Before the accident.”
There it was again.
Raymond leaned forward.
“How long before?”
“Three days.”
Dana's attorney placed a hand on her arm but did not stop her.
Dana explained.
Travis called her into his office.
Closed the door.
Said Lauren had become unstable after discovering “financial problems.”
He claimed I threatened to drive into traffic if he left me.
“He said you were obsessed with surveillance,” Dana said. “Cameras. Cars following you.”
“All of that sounded mentally ill?”
She lowered her eyes.
“The way he told it.”
That was Travis's talent.
Facts became symptoms depending on narration.
Then he told Dana he feared I would create an accident and blame him.
“He asked if I would confirm you'd been driving erratically if something happened.”
“You agreed?”
“No.”
She paused.
“Not then.”
“What changed?”
“Money.”
At least she was honest.
Travis controlled bonuses.
Dana had a son in college.
Mortgage.
Recently divorced.
He threatened to expose procurement irregularities he had instructed her to approve.
“If I refused, he said I'd go down with him.”
Raymond asked:
“What irregularities?”
Dana looked at him.
“Vendor invoices.”
My stomach tightened.
Accounting.
My old world.
I had returned to part-time bookkeeping eight months before the crash because Chloe was leaving for college and I wanted something that belonged to me again.
The small firm where I worked handled several subcontractors connected to Travis's company.
Three months into the job, I noticed duplicate invoice numbers.
Same work.
Different vendor names.
Money paid twice.
I mentioned it to Travis over dinner.
He laughed.
“Construction accounting is messy.”
I believed him.
Then I found more.
One vendor:
Redwood Site Services.
Another:
Redwood Industrial Support.
Same mailing address.
Same bank routing branch.
Different tax IDs.
Payments from Langford Development:
$1.8 million over eighteen months.
I asked Travis again.
That night he told me returning to accounting was “making me obsessive.”
The next week, someone began following me.
I installed the dashcam.
So that was the connection.
Dana continued.
“The vendors were controlled by an outside consultant.”
“Who?”
“Elliot Crane.”
Raymond wrote it down.
I knew Crane too.
Travis's golf friend.
Former insurance investigator.
Always smiling.
Always asking whether Chloe had started dating.
“What did the fake vendors do?”
“Some were legitimate fronts. Some billed for work never performed.”
“Where did the money go?”
“I don't know all of it.”
Dana looked at me.
“But some paid a private medical consulting company.”
The room narrowed.
“What company?”
Northbridge Behavioral Assessment.
I had never heard the name.
Raymond had.
“Psychiatric case review?”
Dana nodded.
Travis had paid Northbridge more than $90,000 over two years.
Not through personal accounts.
Corporate expense codes.
Risk management.
My throat went dry.
“Why?”
Dana answered quietly.
“Your medical records.”
Chloe turned.
“What?”
Dana said Travis had repeatedly sent copies of my physician notes to Northbridge for “functional capacity analysis.”
Without my knowledge.
Why would a construction executive need a private consultant to analyze his wife's ability to function?
Because if I discovered financial fraud, my credibility mattered.
And if my credibility had already been medically undermined—
My accusation became illness.
Raymond asked:
“Who at Northbridge handled the case?”
Dana said:
“Dr. Gregory Vale.”
I knew that name.
Not from business.
From my own chart.
After the accident, Dr. Vale had signed a consultation describing me as at risk for:
confabulation secondary to trauma.
He had never met me.
Not once.
Yet his report influenced how nurses, insurers, and even Chloe were told to interpret my memories.
Denise Carter entered after hearing the name.
She looked furious.
“He wrote that note remotely.”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
Nobody answered.
Dana did.
“Travis's file.”
The consultant who helped Travis build a case against me before the crash became the physician who told the hospital my memories could not be trusted afterward.
That was not coincidence.
Raymond asked Dana about the emergency call.
Her face changed.
“I made it.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Travis called me at 6:12.”
The crash occurred around 6:48.
“He told me there was going to be an accident on Ridgeway Pass.”
“Going to be?”
Dana began crying.
“He said you were threatening to drive off.”
“Where was he?”
“I don't know.”
“He gave you the location?”
“Yes.”
“And told you to call 911?”
“At 6:08, he texted exact coordinates.”
The emergency call timestamp:
6:09.
Forty minutes before witnesses officially located my car.
Dana claimed Travis told her police response was slow in mountain weather and that an early call could save me.
She convinced herself she was helping.
Then after the crash, Travis ordered her to say she had been following me.
“Did you ever see my car?”
“No.”
That erased the only independent witness supporting weather-related loss of control.
Raymond asked one final question.
“Why are you telling us now?”
Dana looked at me.
“Because yesterday Travis called me from detention.”
“How?”
“Attorney conference.”
Her lawyer objected to details.
Dana continued anyway.
“He told me Lauren had started remembering.”
My chest tightened.
“And?”
“He said if the memory card worked, we needed to make sure everyone understood she had been planning suicide.”
Chloe made a small sound.
Dana looked at her.
“I'm sorry.”
Then she reached into her bag and produced a phone.
“He forgot one thing.”
“What?”
“I started recording him too.”
The audio was short.
Travis:
If she says I touched her car, that's trauma talking. Vale already established confabulation.
Dana:
What if the camera shows another vehicle?
Pause.
Travis:
Then it shows Crane doing what he was paid to do.
Raymond stopped the recording.
Nobody spoke.
Elliot Crane.
The golf friend.
The fake vendor consultant.
The insurance investigator.
And apparently—
May you like
the man in the second vehicle.
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