Chapter 3 - THE PATIENT WHO HAD NO NAME
By midnight, Gabriel had identified the company receiving the payments.
Hudson Valley Recovery Services.
It provided private medical coordination, residential rehabilitation, and long-term care.
The company had several legitimate clients.
But one of its former facilities had closed three months earlier.
That facility was where the payments connected to Benjamin had been routed.
I stared at the address.
A small residential medical center outside Poughkeepsie.
“Was he there?”
Gabriel remained careful.
“We don't know whether Benjamin was actually a patient. The payments could have been used to disguise something else.”
But I was already reaching for my coat.
“I'm going.”
Adrian stood.
“Not in the middle of the night.”
I turned toward him.
“You don't get to tell me what to do.”
He stopped.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he nodded.
“You're right. I can arrange transportation and legal assistance, but the decision is yours.”
That surprised me.
Men in Adrian's world rarely accepted no as an answer.
But the man standing in front of me looked less like a feared mafia boss and more like someone realizing how badly he had failed to understand his own household.
The following morning, I left Mia with Mrs. Whitmore, whom she had quickly adopted as an honorary grandmother.
Then Gabriel, an independent attorney named Rachel Monroe, and I traveled to the former medical facility.
Adrian came separately.
He had no intention of pretending he wasn't involved.
But Rachel made it clear that no one would force entry or seize records without appropriate authority.
The facility's former administrator agreed to speak with us.
Her name was Dr. Helen Morris.
She looked uneasy when Rachel mentioned Benjamin Hayes.
“We never had a patient registered under that name.”
My heart sank.
Gabriel showed her the payment references.
She studied them.
Then her expression changed.
“I recognize this account.”
“What was it used for?” I asked.
“A private rehabilitation placement.”
“Who was the patient?”
She hesitated.
“The records are confidential. I'll need proper authorization before releasing them.”
Rachel immediately began arranging the necessary legal process.
But Dr. Morris was willing to confirm something.
The payments had not been ordinary consulting fees.
They funded the care of a real patient.
A man.
Approximately thirty years old when admitted.
He had arrived with serious injuries and remained for several months.
“Did he recover?” I whispered.
Dr. Morris looked at me with genuine sadness.
“I can't discuss his medical history without authorization.”
Then she added something unexpected.
“The person who arranged his admission insisted that staff use a different name.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“What name?”
Dr. Morris hesitated.
Then she answered.
“Daniel Ward.”
I knew that name.
It was Benjamin's favorite pseudonym when he wrote mystery stories in college.
He used to joke that if he ever became a novelist, Daniel Ward would be printed on every book cover.
I gripped the table.
“It was him.”
Rachel gently touched my arm.
“We still need confirmation.”
But I knew.
Somewhere inside that building, six years earlier, my husband had been alive.
And someone had deliberately made sure I believed he was dead.
Before we left, Dr. Morris remembered one more detail.
The patient had received a visitor shortly before being transferred to another facility.
The visitor presented identification and claimed to be acting on behalf of the Kane family.
Gabriel showed her two photographs.
Adrian.
Victor.
She pointed immediately.
“That's him.”
Victor Kane.
Then she looked toward Adrian, who had just entered the room.
Her face went pale.
“Wait.”
She pointed at a second photograph on Gabriel's tablet.
A man standing beside Victor at a foundation event.
“That man came too.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
The second man was Daniel Price.
May you like
Adrian's former chief security officer.
The man who had supposedly died overseas four years earlier.
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