Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(78)

“Is that common?”

“Yeah. It cuts out the doctor’s office overhead and gives the hospital a doctor on-site a great majority of the day.”

“So you’re thinking their medical records would be at the hospital?”

“Yeah. Worst case, I’ll get the emergency records, which might still tell me what I need.”

“Okay.” Zach didn’t even pretend to understand where Raissa was going with this and apparently she was a show, not tell, kind of person.

“Bingo!” Raissa said. “Her records are here.”

He leaned in to watch as Raissa opened the first girl’s medical records. “Stomachache, vomiting, fever,” he read. “Twice in the four months preceding her abduction.” He looked over at Raissa. “So what? She ate something bad…had a virus…nothing that screams ‘kidnap me.’”

“Not yet,” Raissa said, and reduced the record to her desktop and opened another search. “Next name.”

Zach shook his head and read off the name from the next file, wondering how one bridged the gap between a tummy ache and a kidnapping.

“Look,” Raissa said, excited as she pointed to the next girl’s record. “Stomach trouble three times in the six months preceding the kidnapping.”

“Okay. So kids get sick. Maybe there was some big strain of the flu going around that year.”

Raissa turned from the screen and stared at him. “I’ll bet you twenty bucks that every single one of those girls went to the hospital complaining of stomach problems within six months of abduction.”

Zach shrugged. “You’re on. That’s too big of an anomaly.”

Raissa lifted the files from his lap and started typing. One by one she pulled up the girls’ records, and one by one, the facts were right there for Zach to see. When she finished, Raissa looked at him.

“Okay,” Zach said, still bewildered by the similarities in the records and the time line to abduction. “I owe you twenty bucks. Now, would you like to tell me what’s going on? Obviously this proves your theory.”

“I think every one of those girls was sick. I think the reason they were abducted has something to do with what was wrong with them.”

Zach frowned. “But after they were returned, there’s no record of illness.”

“Exactly! And there was no record of illness earlier than six months before they disappeared.”

Zach stared at Raissa, amazed. “Seriously? I didn’t even notice. What the hell?”

Raissa jumped up from her chair and began to pace back and forth across the room. “Don’t you see how extraordinary that would be? The oldest victim is seventeen. I know from my other research that she still lives with her family, in the same home, and they are still in the same income bracket, yet she’s never visited the doctor again after her abduction.”

Zach struggled to wrap his mind around what Raissa was saying. “So you think…what? They cured her?”

“Not then. Remember, they weren’t sick until right before the abductions.”

Zach ran one hand through his hair. “Jesus, Raissa. That sounds a little crazy, even for you. Even for this case, which is anything but normal.”

“Melissa Franco was the same way. Remember, her dad said she was never sick, but Dr. Spencer said the medication they were giving her had curbed some symptoms that were beginning to form. What do you want to bet those symptoms included stomach problems?”

She slid into her chair again, tapped on the keyboard, then pointed to the screen.

“Cancer. And would you like to take a guess at how cancer usually presents itself in the early stages?” She tapped one fingernail on the monitor. “Take a look.”

Zach read the screen that provided a list of the symptoms of leukemia in children. “Initial symptoms are usually attributed to the common flu,” he read. “Damn.” His mind whirled with the possibilities of everything Raissa had said. “But why these kids? And how did the abductors know when to take them? I’ll admit this is fascinating, but it creates more questions than it answers. And it doesn’t prove anything.”

“I think someone’s been carefully watching these girls since they were born.”

“Spencer?”

“Most likely. But I bet there’s more.”

Raissa pulled up the first record. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling up one record after another until she had three hospital records side-by-side on the screen. “Look.” She pointed to the records of the parents of the first girl. “Look at the blood types.”

She turned and looked directly at Zach. “Don’t you see? There’s no way she’s their daughter. And I’d be willing to bet that we’ll find that’s the case with all the girls who went missing, including Melissa Franco.”

“Peter Franco said they had trouble conceiving. Could be that Melissa was conceived in vitro.”

“And the others? All blue-collar families, but they managed to pay the cost of in vitro while in the military? No way. Every one of those children except Melissa was conceived while the father was stationed at the military base in North Carolina.”

“So what? Someone made a mistake with meds, or gave them the wrong babies. I don’t know what you think this is, Raissa.”