Chapter 3: The Coastal Registry
The highway stretched ahead of me in the late afternoon rain, the asphalt slick and black beneath the glare of oncoming headlights. I kept my foot steady on the accelerator of the sedan, the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers marking the passage of miles as I drove away from the manicured gates of the estate and toward the rocky northern coastline.
The smartphone sat in the passenger seat, its screen dark, the video file safely backed up to an encrypted drive in my pocket. Beside it lay the silver locket.
According to the database export I had unlocked in the study, the woman in the video—Elena Vance—had not vanished into thin air, as Nora’s legal team had implied years ago during the quiet settlement negotiations with my father's estate. She had been quietly relocated to a county health clinic in a coastal town two hours north, registered under an administrative code that bypassed public hospital records.
The rain beat a relentless tattoo against the roof of the car as I exited the highway onto a narrow, winding road flanked by wind-bent pines. The town of Oakhaven was little more than a string of weathered clapboard storefronts, a shuttered cannery, and a salt-bleached municipal building that smelled faintly of damp wool and old paper.
I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the Oakhaven County Records Office just as the clock on the dashboard turned to five o'clock. The building was slated to close, but a single yellow light still burned behind the frosted glass of the intake window.
I stepped out into the chill coastal air, pulling the collar of my black suit coat up against the wind. The door groaned on its hinges as I pushed inside, the bell above the lintel chiming with a tinny, hollow sound.
An elderly woman with steel-rimmed glasses pushed down to the tip of her nose looked up from a stack of faded manila folders. She wore a knitted cardigan over a floral blouse, her grey hair pinned into a sensible bun. She took stock of my wet suit, the high-end leather shoes, and the rigid set of my jaw in a single, practiced glance.
"We're closed, son," she said, her voice raspy like dry leaves scraping across concrete. "Records office opens at eight tomorrow morning. Births, deaths, deeds—take your pick then."
"I'm not here for deeds," I said, stepping closer to the high wooden counter. I placed a slip of paper bearing the alphanumeric code from Elena’s database file face up on the laminate surface. "I'm looking for the patient associated with this intake tag from May 2019."
The woman looked down at the slip. Her eyes didn't widen, but her hands stopped sorting the folders. She let out a long, slow breath through her nose, the sound heavy with years of institutional fatigue.
"People don't come looking for files from that drawer unless someone powerful told them they shouldn't," she said softly, not looking up at me. "The girl you're asking about—she wasn't a patient of the state. She was a guest of the foundation. Your father's foundation."
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My heart hammered against my ribs. "Where is she now?"
The clerk finally raised her eyes, meeting my gaze with a steady, sorrowful look that chilled me more than the coastal wind outside. "She isn't here anymore. But the registrar's ledger has the name of the person who signed her out of the registry four years ago. And it wasn't you, Mr. Vance."
