“Find her how?” David asked.
“Everything,” Michael said. “Where she’s been living. Whether she had children. Hospital records. Shelter records if any. Employment. Phone records. And pull the old divorce evidence again. The transfers, the photos, the necklace. All of it.”
David was quiet for a moment. “Michael,” he said finally, “are you investigating your ex-wife or the people who accused her?”
Michael looked down at his hands. Dust from the roadside had settled into the crease of one knuckle when he had touched the door handle. He had not noticed until that moment.
“Both,” he said. “But I think I already know which direction the lie points.”
David began with the hospital trail, because records leave footprints even when people try to sweep them away. Patient intake forms. Call logs. Billing notes. Payment stamps. One clerk who remembered a pregnant woman crying quietly at the counter because she had no insurance card and no husband answering the phone.
At 6:48 p.m., David called back.
“I found a county hospital intake form from eleven months ago. Emily checked in pregnant. Your name was listed as emergency contact. Your private office line was listed. The call log shows three attempts were made. Two to the house. One to your office. All three marked completed.”
Michael closed his eyes. “I never got them.”
“I know. The office call was rerouted. Someone changed the forwarding rule for twenty-six minutes that night. And the hospital intake record was removed from the active system three days later. Someone paid a records clerk in cash.”
Michael stood so fast his chair rolled back into the credenza.
David sent the scan. Michael opened it and read Emily’s name at the top and her shaky signature at the bottom. Under emergency contact was his full name, his office number, his old house line, and his relationship to patient.
Husband.
