Chapter 9
Nine
Alex moved first. He grabbed the one colorized surveillance photo of Charlotte and slid it into an evidence bag before passing it to Brad. “Get this processed.” His voice was sharper than he intended, but he didn’t care. “I want to know where this was taken and who took it.”
Brad nodded, his usual calm holding something harder beneath it. “I’ll send it to forensics and see what else we can pull.”
“My outfit. It was new. I was at Waverly Market grocery shopping for our girls’ dinner night two weeks ago. The slacks—they’re at the dry cleaner for repair. The zipper broke that night when I got undressed.” Charlotte was still staring at the crate of files, fingers tightening around the edges.
Alex watched her carefully. Someone was watching her. Tracking her. And they wanted her to know it.
Noah exhaled sharply. “If they have access to sealed records, we’re dealing with someone on the inside.”
Olivia folded her arms. “Law enforcement.”
“Maybe,” Noah muttered. “Or someone who used to be.”
She looked at her mom. “Is your partner still around?”
“He used to live in Silver Springs,” Charlotte sputtered.
Alex knew there was a lot to unpack from her response.
“Where are the records stored?” Brad asked.
“They should be stored in the records bureau for Waverly County PD at the town hall building,” Charlotte said.
Ethan continued flipping through the recovered files, letting out a slow breath. “There’s something else.”
Alex turned. “What?”
Ethan stepped out of the unit to take a call.
When he returned, his face had a red tinge—anger.
“Graves/Ward had a cellmate who was released twelve years ago, and another released one year ago. His current cellmate is listed as Bubba Watkins. But right now, Ward is being housed in the hospital wing of the prison. He’s dying. ”
“Brad, I know you put in a request. But we need the name of every person he could have come in contact with—staff, other inmates, other visitors—yesterday.” Noah’s jaw clenched. “Those two cellmates’ names.”
Brad and Ethan nodded together. “First, for twenty-three years, it was Ernest Frank. The second one, year twenty-four to just under a year ago.” Ethan gulped. “I checked it twice—it’s reported to be Victor Graves.”
Silence stretched.
Charlotte stumbled. Alex caught her before she tripped over her own feet. He saw the pain of recognition in her expression. He stepped closer. “Charlotte.”
She inhaled, slow and measured. But when she looked at him, something passed through her eyes. “That’s impossible. Victor Graves was Gideon Ward’s alias.”
Brad exhaled. “If Victor Graves is real, there has to be a trail. And if someone is using his name, they’re doing it for a reason. Ethan, we need that mugshot, prints and any other record from the prison.”
“Already ordered,” Ethan said. “I’ve dispatched two agents to pick the records up.”
Charlotte seemed to stare at the chair. She was clearly connecting the new information to something she wasn’t yet willing to share.
Alex moved toward her, lowering his voice. “What are you thinking?”
She met his gaze and shook her head.
The forensics team arrived at the unit and bagged the entirety of the contents, which would be transported to the technical center at Waverly County College, where Ethan had secured a conference room and six breakout spaces.
Charlotte still hadn’t looked away from the chair.
Alex watched her, jaw tight. She knew something; he could see it in the way her hands stayed still, too still. She wasn’t just connecting dots. She was remembering something she hadn’t told anyone.
And Alex suddenly knew whatever was coming next wasn’t just about Ward. It was about her.
The team regrouped at the conference room, where the evidence from the storage unit lay spread across two tables.
The FBI was now taking the lead. The new case took place in at least three different jurisdictions.
Charlotte stood near the window, her back to the institutional blinds, arms crossed, gaze locked on the map Brad had pinned to the rolling bulletin board.
Ethan quietly read the chief of the Waverly County police department into the investigation, speaking quietly in the corner of the room. Noah leaned over his laptop, pulling up digital records of Victor Graves’ last known address and a copy of any employment fingerprints.
Brad and Olivia were each on the phone with state records, trying to trace Graves’ legal history. Alex watched Charlotte as he spoke with the prison warden, trying to get an unofficial photograph of the inmate known as Victor Graves.
She had barely said a word since they left the unit. She was thinking, running through every detail in her head, turning over old memories.
Sophie joined the group, her face unreadable.
She flipped through her tablet, brow furrowed.
"I ran searches through every medical record database I could access. I checked a hunch. Tristan has been trying to have this place shut down since he took over the County ER. The Waverly Pain clinic, at least that is the name it went by most recently. They processed a large cash payment for a penetrating wound to the right shoulder of a patient using the name Victor Graves. According to how they coded it, it could be a gunshot wound or stab wound, among other things. His demographics state he is forty years of age then. It happened twenty-six years ago. That matches Gideon Ward’s profile. ”
Olivia straightened. "They didn’t report it?"
Sophie shook her head. "No. And ‘penetrating wound’ is a sanitized description of the injury. The clinic was fined six times in the last year alone for failure to report DOH-required ailments. They’re known for treating patients under the table.
Law enforcement shuts it down. They close for a while and then open under a new name and a new corporation.
" She shook her head. “Their medical practices are unscrupulous, but their billing is rather pristine.”
Ethan leaned back, nodding. “Those clinics don’t ask questions, but that doesn’t mean the injury disappears. Someone was hurt, and they dealt with it—quietly.”
Alex shook his head. “I’ll get a subpoena for all pertinent records and send an investigator.”
Noah frowned. "I’m going to make a wild leap. The birthdate matches Gideon Ward’s.”
Sophie nodded. “Same date.”
Brad looked at Charlotte. "If someone else is using his name, they’ve been keeping that alias alive for a reason.”
Charlotte exhaled, processing the information. “And if he’s alive, we need to find him.”
Brad exhaled. “The clinic takes cash payments, no questions asked? Shit.”
Sophie sighed. “The patient’s address on the billing is for an extended-stay hotel in Pierre.”
“And let me guess,” Alex grumbled. “No one by that name was ever registered there.”
“Yeah, how did you know?” Sophie asked.
Alex simply shrugged. “I’m psychic.”
Noah muttered a curse, ignoring his partner’s bad joke. “Based on this, my guess is Gideon Ward was the Victor Graves with the penetrating wound, and someone younger used the name Victor Graves in the last seven years. Why?”
Sophie held up a finger. “They did take a Polaroid of the patient’s wound. But it’s not on their server.”
“I’ll put that on the requested subpoena too.” Alex typed on his laptop.
Ethan tapped his fingers against the table. “We need to find out if there are two Victor Graves or none at all.”
Charlotte inhaled slowly. Alex moved closer, brushing his hand over hers. She finally looked at him. No hesitation. No more fear. Just determination.
Alex exhaled. “Whatever started in 1993, it isn’t over.”
Charlotte looked at her watch and back to Olivia. She switched emotional gears so fast, it nearly gave Alex whiplash.
“All of you keep doing what you do.” She straightened, her voice firm. “Olivia, Sophie, and I have gown fittings at Rosalind’s Bridal Boutique. And after that, we have a mom-daughter early dinner date.”
Brad’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
Sophie, who had been typing notes into her tablet, blinked. “Really?”
Charlotte continued, waving a hand in the air, “I’m not going to let all of this,” she gestured toward the table covered in files, crime scene photos, and evidence bags, “disrupt our lives.”
Olivia exhaled, rubbing the back of her neck. “Mom!”
“No,” Charlotte said, cutting her off. “You and Jackson have a wedding coming up, and I’m not going to let some ghost from the past take that away from you…us.”
Olivia didn’t argue, but her jaw tightened.
Alex knew exactly what she was thinking. Nothing about this was normal. Nothing about this could just be ignored. But Charlotte was standing there, eyes sharp, shoulders back, a woman who refused to let the past dictate her present.
Ethan exhaled, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re doing wedding stuff right now.”
Charlotte turned to him. “I can’t believe you think I wouldn’t.”
Sophie looked between them, something like amusement in her eyes. “It’s actually a smart psychological move. You’re keeping control of the situation instead of letting it control you.”
Charlotte nodded, satisfied.
Alex stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Are you sure?”
She met his gaze, something unreadable flickering there. “Yes.”
He knew better than to argue. Her boundaries were set.
Brad tapped a folder against the table. “While you’re doing that, we’ll keep working through this. If anything changes, we’ll call you.”
Charlotte grabbed her purse, nodding. “Fine.”
Olivia and Sophie hesitated for a fraction of a second before following their mother to the door.
Alex watched them go, something unsettled curling in his gut. Charlotte was balancing on a knife’s edge. She was pretending this wasn’t getting to her. But he’d watched her over the last thirty-six hours. He felt the change.
The moment she stopped moving, when she finally let herself breathe, it was all going to crash down around her. But not today. Today, she was the mother of the bride. And nothing, not even a decades-old nightmare, was going to change that.