My eyes stopped.
Medical.
Then another name caught my attention.
Prescott Health Systems.
I sat completely still.
I read the page again.
Northbridge Medical Logistics.
Prescott Health Systems.
There was a supply contract between them.
Or a proposed one.
I couldn’t understand most of it.
I searched the document for Ethan’s name.
No result.
Then I searched “Walker.”
Nothing.
My phone buzzed.
Another message.
Keep reading. Page 47.
My mouth went dry.
I scrolled.
Page 47 contained a list of authorized representatives.
Halfway down was a name I recognized.
Not Ethan.
Samuel R. Baines.
I stared at it.
Sam Baines had been Ethan’s best friend since college.
Best man at our wedding.
Lily called him Uncle Sam.
He had eaten Thanksgiving dinner in our home.
I kept reading.
His title:
Chief Financial Officer, Northbridge Medical Logistics LLC.
“What?”
I whispered aloud.
I had never heard Sam mention Northbridge.
As far as I knew, he worked in commercial insurance.
I reached for my phone.
Ethan had sent another message.
Now search my emails for “Caroline.”
My heart stopped.
Caroline.
Adrian’s sister.
I looked toward the locked hotel door as though Adrian might somehow still be standing outside it.
Slowly, I returned to my inbox.
I typed the name.
Dozens of results appeared.
Most were meaningless promotional emails.
Caroline’s Closet.
Caroline Herrera advertisements.
A newsletter from a restaurant.
Then one message appeared with a sender I recognized.
Samuel Baines.
Two years and eleven months earlier.
Subject:
C. Prescott file
My palms became damp.
I opened it.
There was no attachment.
Only a short exchange.
Sam had written:
Ethan, stop asking questions about this. I mean it. Delete the spreadsheet I sent you.
Ethan had replied twelve minutes later.
You told me the numbers were routine. They aren’t. If Caroline Prescott’s treatment orders were routed through Northbridge, then I need to know why the invoices don’t match the shipments.
I forgot to breathe.
Sam’s response:
This has nothing to do with her treatment outcome. Don’t make connections that aren’t there.
Ethan:
Then explain the missing inventory.
There were no more messages.
I read the exchange three times.
Then a fourth.
Caroline Prescott.
Treatment orders.
Northbridge.
Missing inventory.
My first thought was that it had to be a coincidence.
Prescott was a common enough surname.
Except Adrian had told me his sister’s name only hours earlier.
