Court Papers in the Locked Drawer of a Community Doctor
Karen did not look up from her pad. She tapped her fountain pen against the yellow paper, a steady, rhythmic clicking that sounded like a small clock ticking down.
“A public display of cognitive failure,” Karen said, her rapid-fire legal tone stripping the horror from the words. “If he has three prominent witnesses who can testify they saw you disoriented in a public place, his lawyer can bypass the standard thirty-day notice for the emergency hearing. The judge will sign the temporary order on Monday morning.”
“Then we let him have his audience,” I said, looking directly at the black ink on her notepad. “We will let him set his stage, and then we will close the curtain.”
Karen stopped tapping her pen. The silence in the conference room grew heavy as she looked at me, her sharp eyes assessing my face for any sign of hesitation.
“It is a high-risk play, Rachel,” she said. “If he realizes what we are doing before you lay out the files, he will walk out of that restaurant and destroy his logs before we can get a subpoena.”
