No result.
Then I searched “Walker.”
Nothing.
My phone buzzed.
Another message.
Keep reading. Page 47.
My mouth went dry.
I scrolled.
Page 47 contained a list of authorized representatives.
Halfway down was a name I recognized.
Not Ethan.
Samuel R. Baines.
I stared at it.
Sam Baines had been Ethan’s best friend since college.
Best man at our wedding.
Lily called him Uncle Sam.
He had eaten Thanksgiving dinner in our home.
I kept reading.
His title:
Chief Financial Officer, Northbridge Medical Logistics LLC.
“What?”
I whispered aloud.
I had never heard Sam mention Northbridge.
As far as I knew, he worked in commercial insurance.
I reached for my phone.
Ethan had sent another message.
Now search my emails for “Caroline.”
My heart stopped.
Caroline.
Adrian’s sister.
I looked toward the locked hotel door as though Adrian might somehow still be standing outside it.
Slowly, I returned to my inbox.
I typed the name.
Dozens of results appeared.
Most were meaningless promotional emails.
Caroline’s Closet.
Caroline Herrera advertisements.
A newsletter from a restaurant.
Then one message appeared with a sender I recognized.
Samuel Baines.
Two years and eleven months earlier.
Subject:
C. Prescott file
My palms became damp.
I opened it.
There was no attachment.
Only a short exchange.
Sam had written:
Ethan, stop asking questions about this. I mean it. Delete the spreadsheet I sent you.
Ethan had replied twelve minutes later.
You told me the numbers were routine. They aren’t. If Caroline Prescott’s treatment orders were routed through Northbridge, then I need to know why the invoices don’t match the shipments.
I forgot to breathe.
Sam’s response:
This has nothing to do with her treatment outcome. Don’t make connections that aren’t there.
Ethan:
Then explain the missing inventory.
There were no more messages.
I read the exchange three times.
Then a fourth.
Caroline Prescott.
Treatment orders.
Northbridge.
Missing inventory.
My first thought was that it had to be a coincidence.
Prescott was a common enough surname.
Except Adrian had told me his sister’s name only hours earlier.
Caroline.
Leukemia.
And Prescott Health was listed in the Northbridge documents.
My phone rang.
Ethan.
This time I answered.
Neither of us spoke at first.
Then he said, “Elena?”
I nearly hung up at the sound of his voice.
Five years of marriage lived inside two syllables.
Good mornings.
Arguments.
Birthday dinners.
