Page 197 of The Harbinger

My heart bolted into my throat, but my features remained stagnant. I plugged the drive into my computer as he took a seat, then opened the file.

David Foster: Male, born 2,10,1973

Sarah Foster: Female, born 16,8,1975

“David is a Business Consultant. He helps local businesses develop strategies—”

I held up my hand. “I know what a consultant does.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat and continued. “Sarah stays at home. No work history to speak of since her twenties.”

The image attached bore a striking resemblance to the woman upstairs, only about twenty-six years younger.

“Anything else?”

Inspecting the photos our tracker had captured during the week, the couple’s idyllic life appeared undisturbed despite their daughter’s disappearance. Their house was a quaint two-story white structure enclosed by a picket fence. The backyard was adorned with lofty winter trees, and the vibrant green grass could still be seen even with a light dusting of snow.

The subsequent photo showcased a professionally-taken portrait of Mia, with sunken cheeks and lifeless gray eyes shadowed by dark bags.

“Where did you get this picture of her?”

“Her school. She was seventeen.”

“She looks near death.”

“This is Jennifer Jones,” Dmitri said, pointing to a woman in her fifties with brown hair and black-rimmed glasses. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her collar pressed and flat. “She was Mia’s doctor when they admitted her into a psychiatric facility.”

“This is her age?” I reverted to the image of Mia, her birthday written below.

Dmitri leaned over as I turned my laptop screen.

“Yes.”

“April eighteen?”

“Yes.”

She was nearing twenty-one years old. Not nineteen as she’d suspected.

“What happened with her therapy?”

He shrugged. “She went for several years and did very well, then at eighteen, she tried to commit suicide. That’s when they admitted her into Radiant Medical Center. That was the last they heard from her.”

I exited out of the pictures and scrolled through the documents, searching for her doctor’s notes, but fell short. “Where are her records?”

He shook his head. “They don’t exist.”

“How is that possible?”

“He looked everywhere, but it’s as if she was never a patient there.”

I rubbed my thumb against my bottom lip, my mind spindling up possibilities.

“Then how did he find out where she was admitted?”

“He found a bill for their facility in her parent’s filing cabinet and an ambulance bill attached.” He paused. “And there were some letters from her to her parents, but he’s under the impression they stopped coming three months after her admittance.”

“Why might that be?”

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