Chapter 10
The next morning, on the third floor of the forensic center, Samuel was in his office when his internal phone rang.
"Samuel, the dental records for that female corpse got bounced back," Ben said.
"What do you mean?" Samuel asked.
"The database said the original file format was wrong and told us to resubmit. But I used the template Winona gave me last time, so the format should be good," Ben replied.
Samuel frowned. "Where's Winona?"
"She took half a day off, saying there was some emergency at home."
"Alright, send the original data to my email. I'll handle it myself."
Half an hour later, Samuel opened the email and noticed something was off.
In the dental records that had been submitted, two crucial fields were marked as "missing."
Those missing fields happened to be the main ones that usually triggered a match in the database.
If those were missing, the system would see the data as incomplete and kick it back automatically.
Samuel stared at the screen for a good ten seconds and then opened another file. It was the original dental scan Grace had done two days ago.
In the original records, those two data points were complete.
Somehow, between Grace's records and the version Winona submitted, those two entries had gone missing.
Samuel lined up both files side by side on his screen, going over them three times. Finally, he closed the email.
He stood up and walked over to the window. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat, staring at the empty spot in the parking lot where Winona's white car used to be.
He stayed there for a long time.
I floated outside the window, quietly watching his profile.
What was he hesitating about?
Was he thinking those two missing fields were a glitch, or someone messed them up, or about something else?
If it was something else, did he dare to dig deeper?
He didn't dare. Because if he did, it would mean the person he'd trusted for two whole years, the one who gradually became part of his life and marriage, might have been lying to him from the very start.
He couldn't bring himself to think about it.
He'd rather believe it was a formatting issue.
"Ben," he said over the intercom.
"Samuel?" Ben answered.
"Make a new version of the dental records. Use Grace's original file and skip Winona's template," Samuel told him.
"Alright. Do you want me to tell Winona?"
"No need. Go ahead and submit it."
After hanging up, Samuel did another thing.
He opened up the system logs on his laptop and checked the login history for the forensic center's database.
Last Wednesday, at 1:46 in the morning, someone had logged in with the admin account and accessed the "Dental Records" section of the missing persons database.
The activity log showed that three records had been deleted.
Samuel looked at which admin account had been used. It turned out to be his own.
He'd never changed that password.
There were only two people in the office who knew that password: him and Winona.
The glow from the screen lit up his face.
He slowly closed his laptop.
Before closing it, he snapped a photo of that log page with his phone and saved it to his gallery.
He didn't show it to anyone, but he kept it.
*****
That afternoon, Winona came back.
She pushed open the office door, holding two cups of coffee. "Hey, Sam, your latte."
"Put it there," Samuel said.
"What's wrong? You don't look so good," Winona said.
"Nothing serious. I didn't sleep well last night," Samuel replied.
Winona walked over to his desk and set the coffee down. She glanced at his locked computer screen. "Did the dental records get submitted? Ben said the format got bounced back?"
"Yeah, I had Ben redo it. All sorted now," Samuel replied.
"Alright, that's good," Winona said with a smile, then turned and headed back to her desk.
As she passed the door, her steps slowed, as if she were waiting for something. Maybe she was hoping Sam would stop her and ask about that login with his account last Wednesday.
But Sam stayed silent.
Winona walked out.
The door closed softly.
I drifted in the room, watching the door that now separated them close.
He knew. Or maybe he'd found the loose end of the thread. But he didn't tug at it because if he kept pulling, what unraveled could destroy his whole world. He wasn't ready to deal with that yet.