Chương 9
“We found something else,” he said.
Mara gripped the steering wheel.
“What?”
“Daniel Mercer wasn’t just missing.”
A pause.
“He was investigating something before he disappeared.”
“What kind of something?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
His voice changed slightly.
Less official.
More tired.
“That’s the problem.”
Mara looked at the notebook on the passenger seat.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“We found your name in his research notes.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I can’t.”
Another pause.
“You really don’t remember?”
The question was quieter this time.
Mara hated that it sounded like concern.
“I remember writing my name on things,” she said.
“I mean him.”
She looked through the windshield.
A man walking his dog stopped near the edge of the parking lot because the dog refused to move.
For a strange second, Mara focused on that.
The man patiently waited.
The dog sat down.
Neither of them seemed interested in rushing.
“I don’t remember Daniel,” she said.
“But?”
She swallowed.
“But I think I remember being afraid.”
Officer Grant did not respond immediately.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That matters.”
“Why?”
“Because fear usually has a reason.”
Mara almost laughed.
“Not always.”
“No.”
His answer surprised her.
“No, it doesn’t.”
She waited.
“My sister was afraid of driving after an accident,” he said.
Mara frowned.
“I don’t know why you’re telling me that.”
“Because for six months she said she didn’t remember the crash clearly.”
His voice became distant.
“She remembered pieces.”
Mara looked down.
“The sound of glass.”
“Yes.”
“The smell of gasoline.”
“Yes.”
“But not the moment before.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“She remembered eventually.”
Mara waited.
“She remembered she was the one who caused it.”
The words stayed between them.
Not because they were comforting.
Because they were honest.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying memory is complicated.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question was not accusing.
That made it worse.
Mara looked at the notebook.
“I’m going to find out what happened.”
“I think you should.”
“You sound like you expected me to say that.”
“No.”
A pause.
“I expected you to say you wanted to forget.”
After the call ended, Mara remained in the car for another twenty minutes.
She did not know if she was angry at Grant, Daniel, Lena, or herself.
Maybe all of them.
Maybe none.
She finally opened the notebook one more time.
This time she looked beyond the page with Daniel’s name.
Near the back cover, pressed between two pages, was something she had not noticed before.
A hospital visitor sticker.
Old.
Faded.
The date was eleven years earlier.
The location printed across the bottom made her hands go numb.
Psychiatric Services.
Mara stared at it until the letters stopped looking real.
She had never been a patient there.
At least, she did not remember being one.
But someone had kept this sticker.
Someone had placed it inside her notebook.
And somehow, after eleven years of believing she knew exactly who she was, Mara was beginning to understand the most frightening possibility.
The person she had forgotten might not have been Daniel.
It might have been herself.
The person she needed to speak to was someone she had spent years avoiding.
Mara drove to the old hospital building after her shift ended.
The psychiatric wing had moved to another part of the campus several years earlier, but the original records office still existed in a quiet corner of the basement.
She knew the place.
That was the worst part.
She knew where the elevators were.
She knew which hallway had the broken ceiling tile.
She knew the vending machine that never worked.
Her body remembered things her mind refused to give her.
At the records desk, a woman with silver hair looked up from her computer.
“Can I help you?”
Mara placed the visitor sticker on the counter.
“I need information about this.”
The woman studied it.
“You were a patient?”
“I don’t know.”
The woman’s expression changed slightly.
Not suspicion.
Recognition of confusion.
“That happens more often than people think.”
Mara almost smiled.
“People forget being here?”
“People remember things differently.”
The woman folded her hands.
“Are you looking for your own records?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have identification?”
Mara handed it over.
The woman typed for several minutes.
Then she stopped.
“What?”
Mara leaned forward.
The woman looked uncomfortable.
“There are restrictions on these files.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You just said you couldn’t tell me, not that you didn’t know.”
The woman looked at her carefully.
“You work here, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know how this works.”
Mara hated that.
Because she did.
Privacy rules existed for reasons.
People’s worst moments deserved protection.
But protection could feel exactly like a locked door when you were standing outside it.
“Who can authorize access?”
The woman printed a form.
“Request review.”
“How long?”
“Could be days.”
Mara looked at the paper.
Days felt impossible.
“Someone connected to this file is missing.”
The woman’s fingers stopped moving.
“Who?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
The woman’s face changed.
Only for a second.
But Mara saw it.
“You know him.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Mara leaned back.
The woman noticed.
“I mean I knew of him.”
“How?”
The woman looked around.
The records office was empty.
Still, she lowered her voice.
“He came here asking questions.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
Mara felt the room tilt slightly.
“About me?”
The woman did not answer.
She did not need to.
“His name was Daniel Mercer,” Mara said.
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
The woman looked at the visitor sticker.
Then at Mara.
“He wanted to know why your file had been sealed.”
Mara stood very still.
“Who sealed it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It happens.”
“Not with no name attached.”
The woman looked away.
That was enough.
Mara left the office with a copy of the request form and a new question.
May you like
Not who was Daniel.
Why had someone erased the connection between them?
