Page 174 of His To Erase
I lean back in the chair, running both hands down my face, and I feel the pressure building in my skull like a countdown. The rage. The guilt. The fucking doubt. An hour later my phone’s buzzing and I answer on the first ring.
“You’re not gonna like this,” Travis says—no sarcasm this time.
I sit forward. “What’d you find?”
“It’s not what I found—it’s what’s missing. And before you say it, I know. I can’t believe I didn’t catch this sooner.”
I say nothing, my pulse steady as my brain starts to calculate, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I ran her ID, birth certificate, and social. All of it checks out on the surface. But the timestamps are off. Backdated. Clean.”
“You think it’s fake?”
“It’s sloppy work, actually. Someone rushed it. It looks like they needed her to exist on paper more than they needed her to disappear. You following?”
Barely. But the sick twist in my gut says yes.
“She ever mention where she grew up?”
I pause, jaw tight. “Just said she moved here from... somewhere.”
“I cross-checked the birth certificate against hospital records in the state listed. No match. Whole thing’s smoke. But…”
I sit up straighter. “But what?”
“I did find something older. School enrollment, elementary level. Facial recognition gives me an 89% match—same eyes, same jawline, even back then. It's her.”
“And then?”
“And then nothing. Like the entire family vanished off the grid. But here’s the thing—they didn’t disappear.”
“Meaning?”
“After they moved, the whole family started using a new last name. No court filing, no traceable paper trail. Just—new IDs. New address. New state.”
I lean back slowly, watching the shadows shift across the wall.
“Her parents changed their identities?”
“Looks that way. And quietly too. No criminal flags, no obvious heat.”
“And Ani?”
“Regular life. She had a job, an apartment, normal stuff. But then she quits her job out of nowhere. No digital trail. Just drops off for almost two years.”
A cold breath drags down my spine.
“After that, she shows up in Colorado. Same face. Different last name with just enough paperwork to rent an apartment and get hired slinging drinks.”
I stare at the file again like it might suddenly confess something.
“You think she remembers any of it?”
“I think she remembers enough to be dangerous. But not enough to connect the dots.”
There’s a beat of silence on the line. Then Travis exhales, “You starting to think she’s not the collateral?”
I look toward the hallway at the soft glow under the door, the quiet reminder that she’s still here, curled up in my bed.
