Chapter 3: What the Doctor Knew
Evren didn't sleep.
He sat at the kitchen table after Ilaria finally drifted off, her small body curled under two blankets, her hair still faintly damp at the edges.
The ice bucket was still on the floor where he'd left it.
The ring was still inside it.
He hadn't touched either.
Selin's words kept circling back.
*Ask your daughter's doctor.
Ask him what Lena found out at the last appointment.*
He picked up his phone at 6 a.m.
and called Dr.
Harmon's office the moment the line opened.
"I need to speak with him today," he said.
"It's about Ilaria."
The receptionist paused.
"Mr.
Evren, Dr.
Harmon actually left a note on her file last week.
He's been hoping you'd call."
That stopped him cold.
He was in the waiting room by nine.
Ilaria sat beside him in her wheelchair, holding a small stuffed rabbit she'd had since she was two.
She hadn't asked where Selin was.
She hadn't asked anything.
She just held the rabbit and watched the fish tank in the corner.
Dr.
Harmon came out himself rather than sending a nurse.
He shook Evren's hand, then crouched down to Ilaria's level.
"Hey, bug.
You want to stay out here with the fish while I talk to your dad for a few minutes?"
Ilaria looked at Evren.
He nodded.
She turned back to the tank.
Inside the office, Dr.
Harmon closed the door and didn't sit down right away.
He stood at his desk with his hands resting on the back of his chair, and Evren recognized that posture.
It was the posture of a man choosing his first word carefully.
"How much do you know," the doctor said, "about Ilaria's last round of tests?"
"I know she had bloodwork in February.
You said everything was stable."
"It was.
But Lena came in separately, about a week after that appointment.
She asked me not to contact you directly." He finally sat.
"I've been wrestling with that ever since."
Evren leaned forward.
"What did she ask you?"
"She asked me whether Ilaria's condition could have been caused by something environmental.
Something introduced.
Not genetic." He let that land before continuing.
"She brought documents, Evren.
Lab results she'd had run privately, at a facility in another city.
She didn't want them connected to this office."
The room felt smaller.
"What were the results?"
Dr.
Harmon opened a drawer and placed a folder on the desk.
"I made a copy before she took the originals.
I told myself I'd hold it for thirty days and then decide.
That was four months ago."
Evren stared at the folder.
He didn't reach for it yet.
"Just tell me what it says."
"The private lab found trace levels of a compound in Ilaria's earlier bloodwork — samples Lena had kept from before the diagnosis.
Levels that shouldn't be there in a child.
Levels that, over time, could explain the progression of her symptoms." He paused.
"The kind of levels you'd see if someone had been adding something to her food or drink.
Consistently.
Over months."
The clock on the wall ticked once.
Twice.
"Who had access to her food?" Dr.
Harmon asked quietly.
Evren's hands were flat on his knees.
He wasn't aware of pressing them there.
"Lena was working long hours that year," he said.
His voice came out strange.
Distant.
"Ilaria was home most days with—"
He stopped.
Dr.
Harmon waited.
"With Selin," Evren finished.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then Evren reached across the desk and picked up the folder.
He opened it.
Read the first page.
His jaw tightened but he kept reading, line by line, all the way to the bottom.
Then he closed it and held it against his chest like he was keeping it from falling.
"Where is Lena now?" he asked.
"I don't know.
She said she was leaving.
She said she couldn't prove it yet and she was afraid of what would happen if she confronted the wrong person without proof." The doctor's voice was careful.
"She said she thought you'd believe Selin over her.
That Selin had made sure of that."
Evren stood up.
He tucked the folder under his arm.
"Thank you," he said.
"For keeping it."
He walked back out to the waiting room.
Ilaria was still watching the fish.
She looked up when she heard his footsteps.
"Daddy.
That one keeps chasing the little orange one."
He sat down beside her wheelchair and put his arm around her small shoulders.
"I see that," he said.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
A message from an unknown number.
*I heard you called the doctor's office this morning.
May you like
We need to talk before you do something you can't undo.
— S*
