Page 70 of The Girl and the Lies

“Agent Griffin,” he says. “Is everything all right? What’s going on?”

“You were sleeping with Carla Powell,” I say angrily.

His face falls, and he takes a step back, his head hanging for a second before he looks back at me.

“You found that out,” he says.

“Yes, I fucking found that out,” I snap. “I had to find it out myself rather than either of you coming clean and telling me even while I was in the middle of investigating your roommate’s murder and a near-fatal attack on her husband.”

“Wait,” he says. “You can’t think I had anything to do with those. I admit I was having an affair with Carla. Neither one of us planned it, and I definitely didn’t plan on it lasting as long as it did or getting as intense as it did. But it happened. And then it ended. Before any of this happened, it was over. Besides, you’ll remember that I was attacked when Gideon was murdered. I got stabbed in the back. And the night Marshall was attacked, I was on the phone with you. Then I talked to my brother for a while because I was still worked up about Gideon not getting the same attention as Sabrina. You are welcome to check my phone records and have them look at the cell towers, or triangulate it or whatever. I was nowhere near Carla’s house.”

I realize he’s right. The call from Carla the night Marshall was attacked came minutes after I got off the phone with Jesse and the attack had just happened. He couldn’t have been there. Still filled with fury, but with nothing to say to Jesse, I storm out of the apartment and get back in my car. My mind is spinning. Pieces are falling into place, but there are details that still aren’t making sense. I start the car and drive back to Sabrina and Ander’s neighborhood.

Annette Chambers looks less wary when she opens the door.

“Hi, Annette,” I say. “I need to ask you about something you told me the day Sabrina Ward died. You said she told you that she was pregnant, or that she was pretty sure that she was.”

“Yes, she was thrilled,” she says.

“Right. It was something she’d been wanting for a long time. Did she happen to tell you how far along she was?”

“Not very. Just a few weeks,” she says.

“Okay, thank you.”

I’m on the phone with Detective Fuller before I start my car.

“I need to know Sabrina Ward’s doctor’s name,” I say.

“I’ll call you back.”

He takes less than ten minutes to call me back with the information.

“It looks like all of her doctors were within the same practice. Women and Family Medical Associates,” he tells me.

“Perfect.”

I type the name into my phone and see that the office is still open. I get there as quickly as I can and walk up to the check-in desk with my shield.

“Agent Emma Griffin. I’m with the FBI. I need to request access to the medical records of Sabrina Ward,” I say.

Though the Privacy Act protecting access to medical records persists even after a person has died, this doesn’t apply when the person is the victim of a crime. Law enforcement can request the records even without a warrant, meaning I can access the information I need without wasting any time. The nurse behind the desk nods and hands me a form to fill out with the formal request. She reads it over and sucks in a breath.

“Sabrina,” she says. “I thought that name sounded familiar. I can’t believe she was murdered. Do you really think there’s something in her medical records that could be helpful?”

“I hope so,” I say.

She nods and goes to her computer, typing in a few commands. “All of our records are digital now. We don’t maintain any paper files. But I can give you the access details to her online records,” she says.

“Thank you.”

She writes down the information, and I leave with the note tucked into my bag. Back at Bellamy and Eric’s house, I take out my tablet and input the information into the log-in fields. All the details about Sabrina’s recent health and her visits to the doctor appear on the screen, and I find the date I was looking for.

Opening the appointment record, I read the notes. It’s exactly what I was expecting to see. I’m getting ready to close the site when I notice a notification on the section about medical record requests. It’s too soon to have me listed on the site, so I click on it and read the request. Letting out a breath, I allow the solemn, painful reality to wash over me.

Sabrina Ward had gone to the doctor and had her IUD removed. She wanted a baby even though she knew her husband didn’t. Whether it was something she had always wanted and just made the agreement not to have children because she didn’t want to alienate Ander and thought he would change his mind, or this was something that had only recently developed in her, she decided that she wasn’t going to give up on her dream to be a mother. I obviously don’t know for sure what she was thinking or how she was planning on explaining it to Ander when she revealed that she was pregnant. Maybe she would tell him that it just fell out and she didn’t notice. I’ll never know the full plans she had. But I know she was trying to get around the agreement she made with Ander to never have children.

She wasn’t anticipating him going to her doctor and asking for information about her recent appointments. There’s a release right there on file showing her giving the doctor’s office permission to share information with her husband upon his request. All he needed to do was make a request, and he found out what she had done.

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