Chapter 3 : The Old Records
1197 Words
By afternoon, the laboratory had settled back into its usual rhythm.
People moved through the hallway outside. A printer hummed somewhere down the corridor, followed by the occasional burst of conversation.
Ethan sat at his desk, the sheet of paper covered with case numbers still in front of him.
That morning, he had confirmed one thing.
Claire Morgan had been the subject of a missing-person case.
But there wasn't much available online.
Her name.
Her age.
The date she disappeared.
The place where she was last seen.
That was about it.
Enough to tell him who Claire was.
Not enough to explain why Whitmore had spent so much time looking into her.
Ethan picked up the sheet.
Claire Morgan.
October 14, 2009.
Riverside Private Clinic.
And one time.
7:45 PM.
He stared at it for a moment, then set it back down.
If he wanted to keep digging, the internet wasn't going to get him much farther.
He needed to find the records Whitmore had actually worked with.
Ethan looked toward the cardboard box in the corner.
Whitmore's personal belongings.
Something occurred to him.
Whitmore had always kept his research materials in two groups.
There were the formal records—the documents submitted for projects and filed through the department.
Then there were his working materials.
Those were different.
Notes from meetings.
Loose pages.
Copies of documents.
Sometimes nothing more than a sheet of paper covered in numbers.
Ethan had helped Whitmore organize that kind of material more than once.
Now that he thought about it, the professor had never seemed particularly interested in getting rid of anything.
Ethan stood up.
He went back to the box.
One by one, he removed the contents.
Old notebooks.
Photographs.
A fountain pen.
Several research reports.
A few professional journals that had been out of print for years.
Then several folders.
Ethan placed them on the desk.
The first contained teaching materials.
The second was labeled research projects.
The third contained personal records.
He opened it.
The contents were far less organized than the others.
Several loose pages.
Meeting notes.
A few faded photocopies.
Ethan turned the pages slowly.
Then a thin card slipped from the folder.
It landed on the desk.
Ethan picked it up.
It was an old university archive access card.
The name of the university's archival department was printed across the top.
Below it was Whitmore's name.
And an access number.
Ethan frowned.
He knew the department.
The university archives held older research materials and special collections. Some completed projects were stored there, along with personal research materials donated by faculty members.
The card itself didn't tell him much.
He turned it over.
A faded date stamp appeared on the back.
March 12, 2010.
Beneath it, in Whitmore's handwriting, were three words:
Research materials access.
Ethan stared at them.
If Whitmore had gone into the archives in 2010, there was a chance he had been looking at something more than ordinary university records.
Ethan took the card back to his computer.
He opened the university's internal archive system and entered the access number.
A directory appeared.
Whitmore, Daniel — Research Materials
Ethan scrolled through the list.
Projects from different years.
2007.
2008.
2009.
2010.
One of them covered the period:
2009–2010.
He opened it.
The system asked for authorization.
Ethan entered his student credentials.
After a few seconds, the page loaded.
He didn't rush.
He scanned the directory first.
Most of it looked ordinary.
Project records.
Meeting documents.
Researcher lists.
Anonymized case materials.
And personal working notes attached to some of the original files.
Ethan scrolled down.
Then his hand stopped.
A name appeared on the screen.
Claire Morgan.
He sat still for a moment.
Then he opened the file.
There wasn't much information.
Name: Claire Morgan
Date: October 14, 2009
Location: Riverside Private Clinic
Ethan continued down the page.
Then he saw an appointment entry.
7:45 PM
Physician:
Dr. Alan Mercer.
Ethan leaned back in his chair.
He didn't say anything.
He simply looked at the name.
Alan Mercer.
This was the first time he'd really noticed it.
There was nothing suspicious about the man in the records.
No police notation.
No indication that he had ever been considered a suspect.
Nothing connecting him directly to Claire's disappearance.
As far as the file showed, he was simply the doctor Claire had an appointment with that evening.
That was all.
Ethan picked up his pen.
He wrote:
Alan Mercer
Underneath it:
7:45 PM
Then:
Why did Claire see him?
Ethan paused.
It was a reasonable question.
Going to a private clinic to see a doctor wasn't suspicious by itself.
And eight years after a disappearance, a doctor's name in an old appointment record was hardly enough to make someone a suspect.
Ethan knew that.
He wasn't going to turn a name in a file into a theory without evidence.
But there was something else he couldn't ignore.
Whitmore had kept the record.
That was what bothered him.
Ethan opened Whitmore's private notebook again.
Claire's name was there.
The date was the same.
And beside it was another time.
7:30 PM.
Ethan looked from the notebook to the appointment record.
7:45 PM.
Ethan opened another file.
This one contained a brief police record from the original investigation.
Claire had left home that evening.
She had gone to Riverside Private Clinic.
A witness had seen her enter the building.
After that, there were no reliable sightings.
Ethan read to the bottom.
The final entry was simple.
Case status: Missing.
No body.
No confirmed crime scene.
No identified suspect.
No conclusion.
Ethan leaned back.
For the first time, he realized what he was actually looking at.
This wasn't a murder investigation.
There wasn't even proof that a crime had taken place.
It was simply the case of a woman who had disappeared eight years ago.
A woman Whitmore had apparently never stopped thinking about.
Ethan looked down at the photograph on his desk.
Claire was still smiling.
She looked like an ordinary young woman.
He looked at the name he'd written on the paper.
Alan Mercer.
At least now, he had one person to look into.
Someone who had been scheduled to see Claire on the night she disappeared.
As for what happened afterward—
nobody knew.
Ethan gathered the records and put them back in order.
He didn't keep digging.
Not today.
Some things had to be followed one step at a time.
He picked up Whitmore's notebook.
On the page where the professor had written Claire's name, the handwriting remained unchanged.
The date.
The time.
The location.
Ethan stared at it.
Then he looked at the photograph again.
“Professor…”
He spoke quietly.
“What were you looking into?”
There was no answer.
Only the low hum of the air conditioner.
Ethan closed the notebook.
The afternoon light had begun to fade across the laboratory windows.
On his desk, three things remained.
Claire Morgan.
Riverside Private Clinic.
Alan Mercer.
There was no answer connecting them.
Not yet.
Only a connection.
And Ethan knew that if he wanted to understand why Whitmore had been investigating Claire—
he would have to find it himself.
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