Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,46

off work. I’ll tell you if I find any candidates,” said Lucy.

Alex couldn’t wait.

As she killed time between her encounter with Lucy and their assignation, it occurred to her that she’d have to enlist someone else if she ended up back here trying to locate where her mother might have given birth. That story wouldn’t fly twice. But if she could find Sarah, it would give her a confidence boost for the harder task.

At five, she presented herself in the hallway near Medical Records. Lucy came out the door, glanced at her and made a subtle gesture with her head to go down the hall. They met at the elevators, and Lucy said in a low voice, “Meet me at the coffee shop two blocks east.”

Alex almost giggled at the cloak and dagger nature of the meeting, but managed to straighten her face as the elevator stopped to pick up more passengers. When they emerged in the foyer on the first floor, she left the elevator without a backward glance at Lucy, and went to her car. A couple of minutes later, she found the coffee shop and went in, to see Lucy in a corner booth. Alex slipped into the booth across from her.

“Who are you, really?” Lucy asked, her eyes and voice both cold. “Are you hospital security?”

“No!” Alex exclaimed. “What would make you think that?”

“That file you were looking for? It’s flagged. I’m not sure I didn’t trigger something that will come back to haunt me when I opened it.” Lucy looked on the verge of tears, and Alex felt terrible.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy. Look, you’re right. I’m not that girl’s sister, but I am trying to find out what happened to her. If it’s even the same girl. Here, this is her picture.” Alex opened her phone’s photo application and pulled up the picture she’d had Dawn send her. It showed Sarah shouting something, probably in the middle of one of the protest marches.

Lucy said, “I can’t tell. Here’s a photocopy…it’s the best I could do.” The paper she handed over was hard to look at, even in the low-resolution copy. The girl in it looked to be dead, beaten severely, her face swollen beyond recognition.

Alex put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God!”

Lucy nodded. “It’s worse. You can’t see it in the picture, but her hands and feet were missing, and a lot of her teeth. The state took custody of her remains, since there was no way to identify her.”

Alex couldn’t help the tears that rolled unchecked down her face. “Who would do such a thing?” she whispered.

“It happens more often than you want to know,” Lucy said. “What I want to know, is why was the file flagged? What can of worms have I opened?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “But I intend to find out. I have an idea. When I check it out, I’ll let you know if you’re in danger.”

The girls exchanged phone numbers, and Lucy left. Alex sat there a while longer. So Sarah, if this was her, was one of the unidentified remains recorded in her blog’s database. Her next task was to confirm it was indeed Sarah. This wasn’t going to be easy for her or for Sarah’s parents, but better to know than to think she’d abandoned them. Alex knew that for sure.

Lucy had given her a record number. All she needed to do was search the database for the same number. Maybe the circumstances of how she was found, clearly closer to dead than alive, would give her a clue.

EIGHTEEN

Alex had gotten as far as locating the record and familiarizing herself with the facts as the state had known them when Dylan called to find out if she was going to go to Scottsdale with him. As close as she was to confirming whether she’d found Sarah, she begged off. Dylan seemed disappointed, but she was too absorbed in her work to pay much attention.

A trucker had found the girl on the highway shoulder about ten miles west of Casa Grande. She had been unconscious, bleeding from fearsome wounds. The trucker had stayed with her after radioing for an ambulance, but investigating officers had cleared him when they checked his back trail at the weigh station at the Nevada border on Highway 8. The pool of vomit near her testified to his state of mind, as well.

A search on both sides of the highway revealed her struggle to reach it. She’d left a trail of