Chapter 14 - The Missing Birth Ledger
The medical-storage facility stood between an abandoned warehouse and a freight yard.
Detective Bennett obtained authorization to examine the original records. Jake and Megan were allowed to observe from behind a glass partition while two archivists opened sealed boxes from the hospital’s former maternity department.
The delivery ledger page was gone.
However, pressure marks remained on the sheet beneath it.
A forensic technician angled a light across the paper, revealing faint impressions made by someone writing on the missing page.
Most of the words were unreadable.
Three fragments could be identified:
SULLIVAN, LORRAINE.
INFANT B - FEMALE.
TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.
The authorization contained only two visible initials.
M.V.
Jake remembered the legal petition found in Lorraine’s house. The document requesting temporary guardianship of Grace had been professionally formatted, despite Lorraine insisting she created it herself.
Detective Bennett reopened the evidence file.
At the bottom of the petition was a hidden document code.
MV-4421.
The initials were the same.
Megan searched Lorraine’s old phone records and found seventeen calls to a law office during the months Jake was deployed.
Voss Family Legal Services.
Its owner, Martin Voss, specialized in guardianship proceedings, sealed adoptions, and disputed estates.
When Bennett called his office, the receptionist claimed Martin had never represented Lorraine.
Phone records proved otherwise.
That evening, Jake received an email from an anonymous account.
The message contained no greeting.
Stop searching the hospital records.
Your father tried that.
The email included a scanned police report from the night Andrew Sullivan died. His car had left an icy road and struck a barrier.
Jake had read the report years earlier.
This version contained one page he had never seen.
A witness had told police that another vehicle followed Andrew shortly before the crash.
The driver was never identified.
At the bottom of the email was a final sentence:
May you like
Your father was not running from Lorraine.
He was bringing your sister home.
