Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE RECORDS|
Emma left the Vale residence with more questions than answers.
Dominic offered to have a driver take her home. She refused and walked six blocks before entering a crowded coffee shop, where she called the hospital that had treated her mother.
The medical records department transferred her three times before a tired employee explained that older files had been archived.
“I'm her daughter,” Emma said. “I have the death certificate. I just want the records.”
“I'm sorry, Ms. Hayes. There are restrictions.”
“Can you at least tell me where she received treatment?”
The employee hesitated.
“According to the system, your mother was transferred from St. Catherine's Oncology Center to a private facility shortly before her death.”
Emma went cold.
“What private facility?”
“I'm not authorized to disclose that.”
“Was she conscious when she was transferred?”
“I can't answer that.”
“Did she sign the paperwork?”
Another pause.
“Ms. Hayes, I think you should submit a formal request.”
The line went dead.
Emma sat motionless, listening to the hiss of the espresso machine.
Her mother had never mentioned a transfer. She remembered a hospice nurse arriving at their apartment during the final weeks, a woman named Patricia who had been kind but strangely reluctant to discuss the doctor.
Emma searched old emails on her phone. Most were appointment reminders and pharmacy receipts. Then she found one sent from an address she didn't recognize.
The subject line read: Your mother's discharge documents.
It contained no attachment, only a sentence.
Please do not discuss this matter with anyone associated with the Vale family.
The email was dated three days before Margaret's death.
Emma forwarded it to a new account and called Dominic.
“I need the name of your father's former accountant.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother was transferred to a private facility before she died, and someone sent her an email warning her about your family.”
He was silent.
“Her name was Patricia Bell,” Emma added. “She worked as a hospice nurse.”
“I'll look into it.”
“No. Give me the name of the accountant.”
“Thomas Reed.”
“Where is he?”
“Retired. New Jersey, I think.”
“Give me his address.”
“Emma—”
“If you want me to trust you, stop deciding which truths I can handle.”
He exhaled.
“I'll send it.”
That evening, Emma took a train to New Jersey and found a small house behind a row of bare maple trees. Thomas Reed answered the door with a cane in one hand and suspicion in his eyes.
When Emma showed him her mother's photograph, he went pale.
“Margaret's daughter.”
“You knew her?”
“I helped her hide the records.”
“From whom?”
He looked past her toward the street.
“Come inside.”
The living room smelled of old books and wood polish. Thomas locked the door, then pulled a folder from beneath a stack of newspapers.
“Your mother discovered that your father's death wasn't the only secret the Vales buried,” he said.
Emma stared.
“My father died when I was a child. It was an accident.”
“That's what you were told.”
He opened the folder.
Inside were bank statements, shipping manifests, and a photograph of a man Emma had never seen.
“Who is he?”
“Your father, Daniel Hayes.”
Emma felt the air leave her lungs.
Thomas pointed to a date on the first page.
“Your mother found evidence that Daniel had been investigating Dominic Vale's father. The night he died, he was on his way to deliver it.”
“But my mother said his brakes failed.”
“Perhaps they did. Or perhaps someone made sure they would.”
Emma clutched the edge of the table.
“Who killed him?”
May you like
Thomas closed the folder.
“That's the question Margaret spent the rest of her life trying to answer.”
