Claimed as the Wrong Bride

Chapter 10 Part 5: First Catch

"Octavia Rose Maddox," she said. "Twenty-six. Born in Tripicity. No known biological family in the city. Entered the foster system at age four after a child protection intervention. Seven placements between four and eighteen. No adoption. No long-term guardian placement. Aged out at eighteen." She said it the way she said everything, without pause, without inflection, each fact delivered with the precision of someone who had read the file until she knew it rather than until she had finished it. "The last placement was a family in the Thornmere district. She left at eighteen. No contact recorded after that."

Nobody said anything.

"No tenancy ever registered under her legal name. No property ownership. No hotel bookings. No residential address on any system at any point after she left the foster system." A pause. "Eight years of nothing."

"Eight years," Bastien said.

"Eight years." Vex looked at him. "She has never had a registered address as an adult."

"The art," Bastien said.

"Ash Vane. First gallery showing three years ago. Sol Reyes, agent, manages all professional communications and payments. The commission payments and gallery sales go through an account in her legal name. Autopayments out: gym membership, a storage facility in the grey zone, a prepaid phone service." Vex paused. "No other outgoings. No subscriptions, no streaming services, no food delivery accounts, no clothing purchases traceable to her name. She buys things with cash."

"Education," Bastien said.

"She attended Tripicity South Secondary. Left at sixteen with standard qualifications. No tertiary education registered." Vex paused. "The art training appears to be self-directed. There is no record of formal study."

Bastien looked at the window.

"The gym membership," he said. "Three locations in the area. Which one."

"Unknown. The membership company does not log branch-level access on their standard system." Vex said it without apology. It was simply a gap. "The freeze will tell us."

"Medical records," Adler said.

"Minimal. A registered GP visit six years ago. Nothing since. No hospital admissions. No ongoing prescriptions." Vex paused. "She is either very healthy or very careful about using the system."

"Both," Bastien said.

Vex looked at him. Said nothing, which from Vex was agreement.

"Police record," Bastien said.

"Minor." Vex turned a page. "Three trespassing charges over eight years. First at nineteen, a disused commercial building in the grey zone. Charge dropped, no fine. Second at twenty-one, a parking structure on the east side of the city. Small fine, paid in cash same day. Third at twenty-three, an industrial property near the docks. Charge dropped." She paused. "Nothing since."

Bastien looked at the legal pad.

A disused commercial building. A parking structure. An industrial property.

He looked at the window. At the city below. He thought about the storage unit in the grey zone and the warehouse in the grey zone and the gym with its shower and eight years of no address and trespassing charges at nineteen and twenty-one and twenty-three that had dropped or been paid in cash same day by a girl who had aged out of the system with nothing.

The gym, he thought. She was fit. The fire escape had demonstrated that with considerable clarity. A woman who climbed poles professionally and navigated third-floor crossover walkways in heels while not entirely sober was not someone who used a gym membership as a social membership. She used it to train. She was athletic and she maintained it and the gym was where she did that.

The gym also had showers.

He held that thought for a moment, looked at the trespassing charges, looked at the absence of any address for eight years, and filed the combination somewhere he intended to return to when he had more of the picture assembled.

He did not say what he was thinking.

He filed it in the category he was still naming. Looked back at Vex.

"Anything else." Not the full picture, not the location, not the daily texture of a life he was still missing the center of. But the shape. A woman who had been handed nothing and built something out of the nothing, carefully and without leaving traces, who had made herself as difficult to find as a person could make themselves in a city that had records for everything.

Who had been doing it since she was eighteen.

He looked at the window. At the city below.

"Keep the search open," he said. "Widen it. Boarding houses, night shelters, anywhere that takes cash without requiring ID. She's somewhere. Everyone is somewhere." He paused. "I just haven't found the right thread yet."

Adler made a note. His expression did the thing it had been doing more frequently in recent weeks, the thing that meant he was filing something under a category that had not existed before this situation began.

"She's going to feel the net tightening," Adler said. "When she does she'll run harder."

"Yes." Bastien looked at the city. "And when she runs harder she'll make decisions faster and faster decisions are less careful ones. She's very good at this. But she's been doing it alone. Nobody is good at everything alone indefinitely."

Adler looked at him for a moment. Made another note he did not offer to share.

Rook, from the couch, said: "She really is very small."

Neither of them responded to this.

Rook did not require a response. He was simply noting it for the record, which he had now begun keeping, as instructed.