Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Records
By nine o'clock the following morning, the rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick, suffocating fog that clung to the cliffs of Newport.
Adrian sat in his study, having not slept a single minute.
The door opened, and Miles stepped inside, carrying a thick yellow folder. Behind him walked Marcus Vance, a broad-shouldered man in a charcoal trench coat with sharp grey eyes.
“You found something?” Adrian asked instantly, standing up from behind his desk.
Marcus set his leather briefcase on the couch and unbuttoned his coat. “David Rivera’s life was an open book, Adrian. Honest guy, worked hard, paid his taxes, didn't have a parking ticket to his name. But his work logs from four years ago tell a very interesting story.”
Adrian’s chest tightened. “Go on.”
Marcus pulled out a stack of printed receipts and blueprint copies, laying them out on the mahogany desk.
“Four years ago, between June and August—the exact timeframe your wife spent at her family’s summer retreat in Camden, Maine—David Rivera wasn't working in Boston.”
Adrian leaned over the desk, staring at the documents. “Where was he?”
“He was hired as a sub-contractor for a high-end architectural restoration firm based out of Portland,” Marcus said, pointing a finger at a company name on the top receipt: Vance & Sterling Restorations. “They were hired to remodel the historic library at the St. Jude Children’s Retreat in Bar Harbor, Maine.”
Adrian blinked. “The St. Jude Retreat? Caroline visited that sanctuary twice a year. She was one of their major donors.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said grimly. “And according to the site sign-in logs, David Rivera was the lead carpenter working on the custom oak bookshelves in the main reading room throughout the month of July.”
Adrian’s breath hitched. “Did Caroline meet him there?”
“The logs show your wife visited the retreat four times that July,” Marcus said, pulling out a copy of a visitor registry. “Her signature is right here. July 12th, July 18th, July 22nd, and July 29th.”
Adrian stared at Caroline’s familiar, elegant handwriting on the scanned document. The sight of her name made his stomach turn.
“So David Rivera was in the same building as Caroline,” Adrian murmured, his mind working rapidly. “Did he steal the box from her purse while she was visiting?”
“That’s what I thought initially,” Marcus said softly. “Until I dug into David Rivera’s personal bank account records from that same week.”
Marcus pulled out a bank statement and slid it across the desk.
Adrian looked down.
On July 23rd—four years ago—a direct deposit of $50,000 had been made into David Rivera’s modest checking account.
The source of the transfer was a private trust account held at Chase Bank.
The named owner of the trust account was Caroline Anne Mercer.
The room went completely silent. The only sound was the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Adrian felt the room spin slightly beneath his feet. He gripped the edge of the mahogany desk to steady himself.
“She... she paid him?” Adrian whispered, his voice sounding hollow, like a voice coming from the bottom of a deep well. “Fifty thousand dollars?”
“It wasn't a theft, Adrian,” Marcus said quietly, his eyes full of grim sympathy. “Your wife gave David Rivera that money. And three days later, David Rivera checked out of his boarding house in Maine, returned to Boston, and paid off his mother’s medical debts in full.”
“Why?” Adrian shouted, his voice cracking with a sudden, agonizing fury. He slammed his fist onto the desk, sending a paperweight skittering across the wood. “Why would my wife pay fifty thousand dollars to a carpenter she didn't know? And why would she give him her personal music box?”
“I don't know yet,” Marcus admitted gently. “But there’s one more thing.”
“What?”
Marcus pulled out a final sheet of paper—a medical record from the Maine State Hospital dated August 4th of that same year.
“On her final trip back from Maine, before she returned home to Newport,” Marcus said, “Caroline didn't take the train straight back. She checked into the outpatient clinic at Maine General under her maiden name.”
Adrian grabbed the paper. “Was she sick? Was that when the cancer started?”
“No,” Marcus said softly. “The medical report isn't an oncology report, Adrian. It’s a labor and delivery record.”
Adrian froze. The paper shook violently in his hands.
“What are you talking about?” Adrian breathed, his voice barely a squeak. “Caroline was never pregnant. We tried for five years! We went to every fertility specialist in New York and London! She couldn't carry a child!”
“According to this document,” Marcus said, his voice grave and steady, “Caroline Mercer gave birth to a female infant on August 4th at 4:12 AM. The baby was born healthy, weighing six pounds, two ounces.”
The world shrank down to a pinprick of burning light. Adrian felt his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
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“Where...” Adrian gasped, his lungs refusing to take in air. “Where is the baby?”
Marcus didn't answer. He simply looked toward the study window—toward the small, white staff cottage sitting behind the grand stone garage.
