They would not let us go to Northfield.
Not immediately.
Morales made that clear before I could ask.
“It's an active scene.”
“He left blood.”
“We don't know whose.”
“Exactly.”
“That is why you stay here.”
I had reached the point where every instruction designed to keep me safe sounded unbearable.
Clare recognized the look on my face.
“Don't.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I need to know.”
“So do I.”
Jonah remained at the hospital while police copied relevant sections of the archive.
Morales took us to a secure interview room in another building.
Not the station.
He would not tell us exactly where.
Dererick had already demonstrated that he knew how to track routines.
The less predictable we became, the better.
For three hours, information arrived in fragments.
Northfield was larger than the property photographs suggested.
The basement had been renovated.
Twelve rooms.
Some medical.
Some observational.
Cameras mounted behind tinted panels.
Locked cabinets.
Refrigeration units.
Restraints attached to two beds.
Equipment recent enough to prove the site had not simply been abandoned years earlier.
No Dererick.
No Simon.
No victims.
Only blood.
“Whose?” I asked every time Morales returned.
“Lab is working.”
“How fresh?”
“Very.”
“Human?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to mean someone died?”
“We don't know.”
That answer became unbearable after the fifth repetition.
Clare sat across from me with untouched coffee.
Neither of us had slept.
Neither of us wanted to.
Sleep had become contaminated.
I could not imagine closing my eyes without seeing the camera clamp.
At midday, Morales placed a sealed photograph on the table.
“We found this at Northfield.”
He slid it toward me.
It was a picture of our kitchen.
Taken from outside.
At night.
I recognized the curtains.
The angle came from Peterson's side of the street.
Someone had photographed Dererick and me eating dinner.
“How old?”
“Timestamp says eight months.”
Clare leaned closer.
“What are we looking for?”
Morales turned the photo over.
Writing appeared on the back.
ANNA — STABLE.
Below it:
PHASE III.
My stomach tightened.
“What phase?”
“We don't know yet.”
“He called this an experiment.”
“Anna—”
“Don't soften it.”
Morales stopped.
I looked again.
Stable.
Phase III.
The language was clinical.
I had been categorized inside my own marriage.
“Was there anything else with my name?”
Morales hesitated.
“Yes.”
He placed another evidence image down.
This one showed a plastic storage bin from Northfield.
My name was printed on the label.
Inside were multiple sealed vials.
Medical tape.
A file folder.
And photographs.
Dozens.
Me asleep.
Me walking to the store.
Me entering Clare's apartment.
Me sitting alone in the park.
One picture showed me crying in my car.
I remembered the day.
My grandmother's birthday after her death.
I had pulled into a parking lot because grief hit suddenly.
I thought I had been alone.
Dererick had been watching.
The invasion felt endless.
“Why photograph ordinary things?”
“Maybe behavioral tracking.”
“Maybe?”
Morales sat.
“We're working through years of material.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
He looked at Clare.
Then back at me.
“We found records suggesting Dererick and at least one collaborator were observing the effects of various sedating and memory-disrupting compounds.”
Clare's jaw tightened.
“On people without consent.”
“Yes.”
“Were they developing something?”
“Possibly.”
“For whom?”
“We don't know.”
“Were they selling the data?”
“Financial evidence suggests somebody was paying.”
I leaned forward.
“Who?”
“Shell companies.”
“Connected to what?”
“Still tracing.”
Every answer opened another locked door.
“What happened to Evelyn?”
Morales's face changed.
“We're looking.”
“That means you don't know.”
“It means there's no recent record under that name.”
“Dead?”
“We don't know.”
“Missing?”
“Possibly.”
I pushed my chair back.
Clare caught my wrist.
“Anna.”
I sat again.
“How does a woman disappear after being married to someone and nobody connects it?”
Morales did not answer immediately.
Then he said, “People can disappear socially long before they disappear officially.”
The sentence frightened me because I understood.
If Dererick isolated Evelyn the way his documents described, perhaps no one was left close enough to ask.
“What did the marriage records say?”
“No divorce located yet.”
I looked at him.
“If there was never a divorce—”
“I know.”
“Our marriage?”
“That's a legal question for later.”
Later.
There would apparently be a later for everything.
Law.
Trauma.
Marriage.
Names.
Bodies.
I wanted one answer now.
“Find Evelyn.”
“We are.”
My phone was still with police for duplication, but they allowed me to use a temporary device.
At 1:18 p.m., Morales received a message.
He read it twice.
Then stood.
“They identified the blood.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
“Simon Vale.”
Clare whispered, “Simon?”
“Confirmed through hospital records.”
“Is he dead?”
“Blood loss at the scene could be significant, but there's no body.”
“What happened?”
“We don't know.”
Something had gone wrong between the collaborators.
Dererick and Simon had apparently been together recently.
Now Simon's blood was in the basement.
“Was he hurt by Dererick?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
“Why?”
Morales looked at me.
“Maybe because people become liabilities.”
Peterson.
Simon.
Me.
Loose ends.
The pattern was becoming brutally simple.
“What about the other collaborators?”
“Still unidentified.”
Jonah called.
Morales put him on speaker.
“I found something,” Jonah said.
His voice sounded exhausted.
“What?”
“A schedule linked to Northfield.”
“Upcoming?”
“Past and current.”
“People?”
“Yes. But there's another column.”
“Which is?”
“Observer.”
Clare closed her eyes.
We already knew what that likely meant.
“Names?”
“Codes.”
“Read them.”
Jonah listed several.
SV.
D.
K.
M2.
Seven.
R.
Same identifiers as before.
“How often does D appear?” I asked.
“Most entries.”
Dererick.
“What about SV?”
“Second most.”
Simon.
“What about the others?”
“Less frequent.”
“But real.”
“Looks like it.”
The operation had at least four more participants.
Maybe not all active.
Maybe not all aware of the full scope.
But they existed.
“Any connection to the payments?” Morales asked.
“Working on it.”
“Send me the file.”
A minute later, Morales received it.
He scanned the rows.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He turned the screen.
One observer code had a note beside it.
R — logistics.
Morales looked at Jonah.
“Search logistics documents for R.”
We waited.
Jonah typed.
“I have one.”
“Open.”
Pause.
Then:
“Vehicle transfers. Property access. Disposal.”
The final word changed the room.
“Disposal of what?” Clare asked.
“No object specified.”
“Search related files.”
Keys clicked.
Then nothing.
Jonah said, “There's an address.”
Morales wrote it down.
“Where?”
Jonah read it.
Clare looked confused.
Morales didn't.
“What?”
He stood.
“Municipal storage property near the river.”
“Storage of what?”
“Decommissioned fleet equipment.”
My pulse quickened.
“Owned by the city?”
“Leased portions. Multiple contractors.”
“Could R be a contractor?”
“Maybe.”
He left immediately.
Hours passed.
The police found three vehicles at the property.
One belonged to Simon.
Another had stolen plates.
The third was registered to a shell company linked to Dererick's financial records.
Inside the third vehicle, investigators found medical coolers.
Camera equipment.
Clothing.
Zip restraints.
And blood.
Not Simon's.
Another person's.
Female.
Unknown.
Clare turned pale.
“How old?”
“Recent.”
“Can they identify her?”
“Working on it.”
“What kind of vehicle?”
Morales looked at me.
“A van.”
I remembered entries marked TRANSFER.
My stomach twisted.
“They transported people.”
“Likely.”
“Where?”
“Northfield may be one location.”
“One?”
Morales did not answer.
Jonah did.
“The archive references another site.”
I turned.
“What?”
“I just found it.”
“Where?”
“No address. Only code.”
“What code?”
“SOUTH.”
I thought of Northfield.
North.
Northfield.
“Southfield?”
“Searching.”
Nothing.
“Southgate?”
No.
“South something?”
Possibly.
Morales sent the term to his team.
I stood near the window.
The city outside continued moving.
Somewhere Dererick was still free.
Perhaps Simon was dying.
Perhaps another woman was bleeding.
Perhaps there were rooms like Northfield in places no one had found.
My life had become too large to fit inside one betrayal.
I missed the simplicity of believing my husband had drugged only me.
The thought shamed me.
Only me.
As if that would have been easier because fewer people were suffering.
Clare came beside me.
“You don't have to feel guilty for wanting this to be smaller.”
I looked at her.
“I didn't say anything.”
“You didn't have to.”
I turned back to the window.
“Do you think Evelyn is alive?”
Clare hesitated.
“Yes.”
“You're lying.”
“Yes.”
The honesty nearly broke me.
Morales returned.
He had another photograph.
“Found in the van.”
He placed it on the table.
A woman.
Older than in the wedding picture.
Thin.
Dark hair cut shorter.
Looking directly at the camera.
Evelyn.
I knew immediately.
“She's alive.”
“Photo timestamp is six months ago.”
Six months.
Not proof of now.
But close enough to become hope.
“Where was this taken?”
“We're analyzing background details.”
I studied the image.
Behind Evelyn stood a tiled wall.
Industrial sink.
A green EXIT sign reflected in glass.
Nothing obvious.
Then I saw her wrist.
A hospital identification band.
Clare leaned closer.
“There are letters.”
The image was blurry.
Morales enlarged it.
The band showed only part of a facility name.
…TH H…
Clare frowned.
“South Harbor?”
Morales looked at her.
“What?”
“There's a private behavioral health facility called South Harbor.”
Jonah searched.
The name existed.
Small.
Privately owned.
Located two hours away.
Parent company hidden behind layered corporate registrations.
One of those companies appeared in Dererick's financial records.
SOUTH.
I felt suddenly cold.
“Evelyn was there.”
“Maybe.”
“No. That's the site.”
Morales began calling his team.
I looked again at Evelyn's face.
She was not smiling.
She looked directly at the lens with the expression of someone who knew the camera was there and had stopped pretending otherwise.
Then I noticed something tucked beneath her palm.
A small object.
Paper.
A corner visible.
Jonah enlarged the image.
Writing.
Three characters.
A.
H.
?
He sharpened what he could.
The last character became clearer.
A.H. 3.
My initials.
Anna Hale.
Phase III.
Evelyn had been photographed six months ago holding a note that appeared to reference me.
My breath stopped.
“She knew about me.”
Clare looked horrified.
“Anna…”
“She knew he married me.”
Maybe she had known for years.
Maybe Dererick had told her.
Maybe he had shown her photographs.
Maybe Phase III had something to do with replacing one wife with another.
The possibilities became unbearable.
Morales ended his call.
“A team is moving toward South Harbor.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Six months earlier.
Evelyn.
A hospital band.
My initials.
The first wife had not vanished from Dererick's life.
He had kept her somewhere.
And six months ago, while I slept beside him believing we were an ordinary married couple, Evelyn had already known that I would eventually become part of whatever had happened to her.
