Chapter 6 - The Woman in Room 12
Police found the transport van abandoned near Waukegan before dawn. The patient and driver were gone; only a cut wheelchair restraint and tape marked ROOM 12 remained.
Nicholas spent the morning at a private clinic while Hannah's blood sample and the tablets were tested under chain of custody.
The preliminary report came back at 9:40.
The pills contained an unprescribed sedating compound capable of worsening weakness and confusion without making the cause obvious.
"Slow enough to look medical," Hannah said.
Nicholas stared at the report.
"Slow enough to make me sign things."
Walter went still.
"What things?"
Nicholas told him about papers Claire had brought three nights earlier.
Wedding trust revisions.
Temporary management authority.
Emergency voting proxies "in case rehab took longer than expected."
He had refused to sign because his hands were trembling.
Claire had called him paranoid.
Now Walter asked for the documents.
They were gone from Nicholas's desk.
Hannah checked Claire's room.
Empty drawers.
A missing laptop.
The guard outside insisted nobody had entered.
"Then somebody did before we posted you," Vincent said.
Under the mattress, Hannah found a folded visitor badge from Lake Briar.
DATE: nine days earlier.
PATIENT: R. VALETTI.
The surname was misspelled by one letter.
"Rebecca," Nicholas said.
A handwritten note on the back read:
SHE REMEMBERS THE BRIDGE.
Nicholas's face changed.
Seven years earlier, Rebecca's supposed fatal crash had happened near a bridge outside Milwaukee.
Hannah looked at him.
"What happened that night?"
Nicholas answered slowly.
"She said she'd found something about my father. She wanted me to meet her. I told her we would talk in the morning."
"Did she say what she found?"
"A ledger."
Walter swore under his breath.
Nicholas turned.
"You know what that means."
Walter did not answer.
That frightened Nicholas more than Claire ever had.
"Walter. What ledger?"
May you like
The older man looked toward the closed door.
"The one your father killed to keep buried.
