The investigator looked up from the
photo.
“There’s a
patient code on the back.”
By noon, they had the clinic records.
Not under her real name.
Not under any name Gavin recognized.
But the intake notes described a woman brought in years earlier with memory gaps, injuries, and no identification, transferred repeatedly through private facilities connected to the same development consortium.
The signature authorizing the first transfer belonged to Chloe’s grandmother.
Gavin read the line until the words blurred.
“She didn’t just help them frame me,” he said. “She gave her own daughter to them.”
Mitchell’s voice was low.
“She helped keep her hidden.”
“Why?”
The investigator placed the ledger in front of him.
“Because your wife knew where every payment went.
If she came back, the land deal died, the prosecutions reopened, and the people who bought that region lost everything.”
At 3:18 p.m., state police found the prosecutor’s investigator in a motel
