Chapter 8 - Seventeen Missing Minutes
The clinic no longer existed.
Mercer Ridge Surgical Center had closed eighteen months after Amelia’s crash.
Its records had supposedly been transferred to an archive company in New Jersey.
Mara obtained a warrant.
Most of the boxes were ordinary.
Billing statements.
Insurance claims.
Personnel files.
Then they found October 21.
Amelia Hale’s name did not appear.
But one unidentified female patient had been admitted at 11:06 p.m.
Approximate age thirty-eight.
Severe trauma from motor vehicle collision.
No insurance information.
No emergency contact.
Richard stared at the intake sheet.
Amelia had been thirty-eight.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
Mara turned the page.
Transfer ordered at 12:14 a.m.
Destination blank.
“Transferred where?”
“No record.”
Richard looked at the signature.
DR. NATHAN KESSLER.
Kessler was dead.
He had suffered a heart attack eleven months after Amelia’s death.
But his nurse was alive.
Rebecca Sloan lived in Philadelphia.
She remembered the night instantly.
“You don’t forget a patient like that.”
Richard’s chest tightened.
“Was it Amelia?”
Rebecca studied a photograph.
Then nodded.
“Yes.”
Richard gripped the table.
“She was alive?”
“Yes.”
The world seemed to tilt.
“How alive?”
“Unconscious when she came in.”
“But breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Could she have survived?”
Rebecca’s expression softened.
“Mr. Hale, I can’t answer that.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“She had internal injuries.”
“Was she treated?”
“Stabilized.”
“Then transferred?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Technically.”
“What does that mean?”
“A private ambulance arrived.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who authorized it?”
“Dr. Kessler.”
“Was anyone with the ambulance?”
“Yes.”
Richard leaned forward.
“Who?”
“A man in a suit.”
“Thomas Bell?”
Rebecca looked at a photograph.
Her face changed.
“That’s him.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Thomas had been there.
At midnight.
While Richard was thousands of miles away believing his wife was already dead.
“What happened next?”
“They took her.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Richard could barely breathe.
Mara asked,
“Did you ever see a death certificate?”
“No.”
“Who reported her death?”
Rebecca frowned.
“Dr. Kessler told staff the patient expired during transfer.”
Richard whispered,
“But you never saw her body.”
“No.”
A terrible possibility opened.
One Richard did not want to touch.
“If Amelia left that clinic alive... whose body was in the vehicle when I identified her?”
Rebecca stared.
Mara intervened.
“The body was heavily injured.”
“Dental records matched.”
“Records can be manipulated.”
“The ring was hers.”
“Objects can be moved.”
Richard stood abruptly.
His chair scraped the floor.
“No.”
Mara looked at him.
“Richard.”
“No.”
Hope could be crueler than grief.
For twenty-two months he had learned to live around the shape of Amelia’s absence.
He could not survive believing she might have lived unless there was proof.
“Find the ambulance.”
They did.
The company operated under another name.
A driver named Victor Nash remembered the trip.
He had been paid cash.
The patient was transported north.
“To where?” Mara asked.
Nash looked terrified.
“I signed an agreement.”
Richard put both hands on the table.
“My wife was in that ambulance.”
Nash looked at him.
“Please.”
“Where did you take her?”
Nash finally whispered,
“A rehabilitation hospital in Massachusetts.”
Richard’s heart stopped.
“Name?”
“St. Catherine’s Neurological Institute.”
Richard knew it.
Private.
Exclusive.
Built for wealthy patients recovering from severe brain injury.
He called before Mara could stop him.
No Amelia Hale.
No Jane Doe matching the date.
Then Sophie called.
Richard answered immediately.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Daddy?”
Her voice sounded strange.
“What’s wrong?”
“I remembered the lady.”
Richard froze.
“What lady?”
“The lady who came after Mommy left.”
“Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Sophie whispered,
“She wore white clothes.”
“A doctor?”
“Maybe.”
“What did she do?”
“She took Mommy’s blue necklace.”
Richard’s breath caught.
Amelia’s sapphire pendant.
The piece he had supposedly identified at the morgue.
“Where?”
“In Mommy’s bedroom.”
“When?”
“That night.”
Richard felt the floor vanish beneath him.
The necklace used to identify Amelia had been removed from the house after the crash.
Which meant whoever placed it with the body had access to the mansion.
And Sophie had seen one of them.
“Do you remember her face?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
Sophie became quiet.
“She had a name on her shirt.”
“What name?”
Sophie sounded out the letters.
“C... A... T... H...”
May you like
Richard closed his eyes.
St. Catherine’s.
