Chapter 3 - The Dead Woman Had Medical Records
Sophie was dehydrated and underweight, but stable.
Emily’s examination took longer.
Old fractures.
Repeated restraint injuries around both wrists.
A poorly healed shoulder.
Evidence that she had recently been struck.
The physician documented everything without asking her to tell the story repeatedly.
Michael sat outside the examination room because Emily had flinched when he first tried to touch her.
That hurt.
He did not make it about him.
By sunrise, his outside counsel, Allison Park, had contacted NYPD and federal authorities. Because Emily described being taken across state lines and held in Nevada and California, the matter could expand beyond New York.
Nobody promised an arrest.
Nobody rushed into Victoria’s penthouse.
They started with verification.
Emily’s fingerprints matched prints from an old New York attorney-license application.
Her identity was no longer seriously in question.
Sophie’s paternity testing would take longer.
Michael didn’t need the result to sit beside her crib.
“She has your eyebrows,” Emily said from the hospital bed.
It was the first almost-normal sentence between them.
Michael looked at his daughter.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily’s expression hardened.
“For what?”
“For not finding you.”
“Don’t do that yet.”
Yet.
He understood.
Detective Lena Ortiz arrived that afternoon with a federal agent from the FBI’s New York field office.
Emily described the Tahoe property carefully.
Stone exterior.
Green metal roof.
A narrow road.
A detached garage.
She remembered hearing a caretaker call it “Northstar.”
Allison searched property records.
Northstar Leisure LLC owned three homes near Lake Tahoe.
The LLC did not belong to Victoria.
It belonged to a Delaware holding company whose authorized signatory was:
Victor Hayes.
Michael stared at the page.
“My CFO.”
Agent Ortiz nodded.
“That does not prove he knew someone was being held there.”
Michael appreciated the precision.
Then Allison placed another document beside it.
Northstar Leisure had received quarterly payments for the previous two years from a Harrington Properties “executive relocation reserve.”
May you like
Every payment had been approved by Victor.
And countersigned by Victoria.
