Chapter 5 - Anna Reed
Ruiz found Anna Reed through insurance records.
The name appeared at three medical facilities after Rachel’s crash.
No birth certificate.
No Social Security history before the admission.
No prior employment.
Anna Reed appeared in the world at age thirty-five.
Rachel’s age.
The first facility was Hale Neurological Recovery Center.
The second, a private rehabilitation residence in Virginia.
The third, St. Vincent Neurological Hospital in North Carolina.
Current status unavailable.
Daniel stared.
“Unavailable?”
“The insurance policy terminated two months ago.”
“Was she discharged?”
“No discharge record.”
“Transferred?”
“No.”
“Then where is she?”
Ruiz did not know.
They obtained a photograph from a former nurse.
The nurse remembered Anna.
“Traumatic brain injury,” she said.
“Severe memory disruption.”
“Family?”
“Her sister visited.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Name?”
“Amanda.”
The nurse looked at photographs.
She identified Amanda immediately.
“She said she was Anna’s sister.”
Daniel asked,
“Did Anna ever say her real name?”
The nurse hesitated.
“Once.”
“What?”
“She said Daniel.”
His throat tightened.
“What exactly?”
“She woke from a nightmare yelling, ‘Daniel, get Sophie.’”
Daniel had to sit down.
The nurse continued.
“Amanda told us Daniel was an abusive ex-husband.”
Rebecca swore under her breath.
“She said Anna’s memory was unreliable and contact could trigger dangerous behavior.”
Daniel looked away.
Rachel had been alive.
Calling his name.
And Amanda used him as the reason she could not contact him.
Ruiz asked,
“Did you ever question the story?”
The nurse looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Anna never acted afraid when she said Daniel’s name.”
“What did she seem?”
“Heartbroken.”
The nurse described one afternoon.
Anna had seen a television commercial featuring Carter Medical.
Daniel appeared briefly.
She began crying.
She touched the screen.
Said,
“That’s my husband.”
Amanda arrived hours later.
After that, Anna was transferred.
Daniel’s hands curled into fists.
“Where?”
The nurse did not know.
Victor controlled transfers.
Daniel asked,
“Did Amanda ever hurt her?”
“No.”
“At least not physically.”
The distinction mattered.
Amanda’s role might be more complicated than he wanted.
Then Ruiz received another lead.
Allison Mercer.
The dead woman whose passport Amanda carried.
Allison had been a nurse at Victor’s clinic.
Six years earlier she died after an overdose.
Victor signed the death certificate.
But Allison’s mother, Patricia, insisted the woman who died was not her daughter.
Nobody believed her.
Daniel drove to Ohio.
Patricia Mercer was sixty-eight.
She opened the door and stared at Amanda’s photograph.
Then she started crying.
“That’s Allison.”
Daniel froze.
“You’re sure?”
“I gave birth to her.”
Amanda Hale was Allison Mercer.
Or at least the woman Daniel knew as Amanda was.
Patricia explained.
Allison worked for Victor Hale after nursing school.
She called one night frightened.
She said Victor had asked her to alter patient records.
Then she vanished.
Days later Patricia was told Allison died in an apartment.
The body had been cremated before Patricia arrived.
Victor personally paid funeral expenses.
“She called me three months later.”
Daniel stared.
“What?”
“She whispered.”
Patricia cried.
“She said she had to become someone else.”
“What name?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“She said Dr. Hale owned her now.”
Daniel felt a different kind of horror.
Amanda might not have begun as Victor’s partner.
She may have begun as his victim.
Patricia continued.
“Allison said she had done terrible things.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Then she handed Daniel a postcard.
No return address.
Written five years earlier.
Mom,
I’m alive. Please forgive me. If I come home, he’ll hurt you.
A.
Daniel looked at Amanda’s photograph.
A woman could be victim and offender.
He had learned that before.
But whatever Victor had done to Allison did not erase her hitting Sophie.
Or hiding Rachel.
Or lying to him.
Still, the shape of the conspiracy changed.
Daniel asked Patricia,
“Did Allison have a birthmark?”
Patricia smiled sadly.
“Behind her right shoulder.”
Daniel remembered.
Amanda had one.
That confirmed it.
Amanda Hale did not exist in the way Daniel believed.
The real Amanda Hale had been Victor’s biological daughter.
Where was she?
Patricia whispered,
“I think she died.”
Daniel looked up.
May you like
“Why?”
“Allison told me she had been given a dead girl’s life.”
