Chapter 24: The Medical File

The next morning, Elena drove Marcus to the medical facility. Not the one where Dr. Thorne was fading away, but the old one. The clinic where Thorne had practiced for forty years before retiring. It was now a med-spa, all glass and succulents, but the basement archives were still intact, rented out to a records storage company.

Marcus had a friend who worked in digitizing. Access cost five hundred dollars of the pawn shop cash.

"We need the logbooks from 1986," Elena said as they walked down the metal stairs, the air cooling with every step. "Specifically, the daily patient register. Not the official file. The register."

"Why the register?" Marcus asked, his flashlight cutting through the gloom of the storage cages.

"Because the file is what you show the insurance company. The register is what the receptionist writes down when you walk in the door."

They found the box labeled *Thorne - 1980-1990*. It was heavy, smelling of mildew and secrets.

Marcus pulled out the ledger for 1986. He flipped to October.

*October 10. Julian Hawthorne. Check-up.*
*October 12. Julian Hawthorne. Emergency. Home visit.*

Elena pointed to the entry. "Home visit. Thorne went to the manor the day the baby died."

"And?" Marcus asked.

"Look at the next entry."

*October 12. 11:00 PM. Vane. Consult.*

Vane wasn't a patient. He was a lawyer. Why was he consulting with a pediatrician at eleven o'clock at night?

"Keep going," Elena said.

Marcus turned the page.

*October 14. 2:00 AM. Transport. Private.*

"Transport," Marcus whispered. "He moved the body."

Elena felt sick. She leaned against the metal shelving. "He moved the body during the storm. When no one would be on the roads."

"But where did he take it?" Marcus asked. "If the grave in the cemetery is empty—or at least, unmarked—he must have taken it somewhere else first. To prepare it."

"Or to hide the cause of death," Elena said. "If the baby starved, an autopsy would have shown it. Thorne couldn't sign a death certificate for SIDS if the baby looked like a skeleton."

"So they needed a place to... manage the remains." Marcus closed the book. "A funeral home?"

"No," Elena said. "Vane wouldn't trust a mortician he didn't own. He would have used something private. Something he controlled."

She thought about the map of the estate. The manor. The carriage house. The boathouse.

"The boathouse," she said. "It has a deep freeze. For the game Constance used to hunt."

Marcus looked at her, horror dawning on his face. "Elena. You think he kept the baby in a freezer?"

"I think he kept the baby in a freezer until he could find a way to bury him without questions," she said. "And I think he kept him there until he had a replacement ready."

Marcus grabbed her arm. "We need to go. Now."

"Why?"

"Because if Vane was meticulous enough to record a midnight consult, he was meticulous enough to alarm the archives."

He pointed to the ceiling. A red light was blinking on the motion sensor.

It wasn't a motion sensor. It was a silent alarm.

They ran up the stairs. They burst out into the lobby of the med-spa, startling a woman getting a chemical peel.

They didn't stop. They ran to Marcus’s car.

As they pulled onto the main road, a black sedan peeled out of a side street, cutting them off.

It wasn't Vane. It was Sheriff Brady.

"Pull over," Marcus said, his hands tight on the wheel. "If we run, he shoots."

Elena looked at the death certificate in her purse. The photos. The evidence of a stolen life and a buried crime.

"Don't stop," she said.

"Elena—"

"Don't stop!"

Marcus swerved around the cruiser. The sheriff’s siren wailed, a scream that tore through the morning air.

They were running. And now, the whole town knew it.

Elena looked back. The black sedan was following. Not the sheriff. Vane.

He was driving himself.

And he was gaining.