Chapter 4 - The Date That Didn't Exist
The date on the bracelets was September 14, 2026.
Five weeks before the hearing.
Katherine had been living under another name in Vermont.
Mercy had supposedly vanished more than twenty years earlier.
And I had been unconscious in the Bennett dining room while Richard and Eleanor argued over whether to call an ambulance.
Three women.
Three bracelets.
One date.
I stared at the photograph Sullivan showed us.
"Why would someone print hospital bracelets for all three of us?"
Reyes answered carefully.
"We don't know yet."
Katherine leaned closer.
"Look at the lettering."
I studied the image.
The names had been printed in black.
Beneath each was a number.
Not a date of birth.
Not a medical record number.
Something shorter.
01\. 02. 03.
Katherine pointed.
"Mercy is number one."
She looked at me.
"I'm number two."
My bracelet was marked three.
I felt sick.
Daniel took the photograph.
"These may be inventory or tracking labels rather than authentic hospital identification."
"Tracking what?" I asked.
Nobody answered.
Then Sullivan received a call from the search team.
She put it on speaker.
"Detective, we located a storage compartment behind a removable section of the wall."
"What was inside?"
"Medical supplies. Old restraints. A damaged recording device."
Katherine went pale.
"Was there a red cabinet?"
A pause.
"Yes."
She shut her eyes.
"Don't open the bottom drawer without photographing it first."
Sullivan frowned.
"Why?"
"Because that's where Eleanor kept the records."
The officer on the phone said something muffled.
Then another voice interrupted.
"We've got a problem."
Sullivan straightened.
"What kind of problem?"
"The cabinet is empty."
Katherine stared at the phone.
"Empty?"
"Someone cleared it out."
Sullivan asked when the area had last been accessed.
The officer replied that fresh dust marks and tool impressions suggested recent activity.
Then he added one more detail.
A maintenance camera had captured a man leaving the east wing shortly before the search team arrived.
The footage was grainy.
But the officer recognized him from photographs.
Dr. Samuel Whitaker.
The physician who had told me I didn't need a hospital.
The man prepared to testify that I had injured myself.
I looked toward Daniel.
"He took the records."
"Possibly," Daniel said.
Katherine shook her head.
"No."
Everyone turned toward her.
"Whitaker didn't take them to protect Richard."
"Then why?" Reyes asked.
Katherine looked at the photograph of the empty cabinet.
"Because he knows what's written inside."
May you like
She swallowed.
"And because if Eleanor gets those records back, he's a dead man."
