It was small. Easy to overlook if I had not already been looking for a flaw. A period of several months that did not align cleanly with his employment history. No official record. No listed position. No explanation.
My focus narrowed. There it was. Something was wrong. I read the section again. People do not disappear from their own records without a reason. There is always something behind it. Something they do not want seen.
For the first time since I started this, I felt that familiar sense of certainty return. The belief that I had been right to question him, so I followed the thread.
It took longer than I expected. There were no direct records, nothing official to confirm what he had been doing during that time. Eventually, I stopped circling the same unanswered gaps and reached out to someone who had worked with him directly. It took longer than I expected for the call to go through, and I had to rely on a favor to make it happen. When the line finally connected, the voice on the other end carried a note of caution.
"Yeah?"
"I'm looking into Bramwell," I said, keeping my tone even. "We crossed paths recently. I was told you might know him from the fieldwork team."
A pause. Then, "I know him. Why?"
"I'm trying to understand a period where there's no formal record. A gap in his work history."
Another pause, longer this time. I could hear something shift in the background, like he'd stepped outside.
"That's not a gap," he said finally. "That's when he left."
"Left?"
"Yeah. Not officially. He just... stepped away."
"For what reason?"
There was a quiet exhale. "For Daniel."
"Daniel?"
"His friend. They'd known each other since university. He got sick. It was bad and terminal."
I didn't say anything, letting him continue.
"He was based in another city by then. Bramwell packed up, put his research on hold, and went to him. He sorted his projects quietly, handed off what he could, and disappeared from the schedule."
"He stayed the entire time?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, his voice settling into something more certain as he continued. "Months, maybe longer. I didn't keep exact track. He stepped away from his fieldwork for it, put everything else on hold. Appointments, medication, daily care, all of it. I visited once, just briefly, and it wasn't easy to witness. He described it as a long goodbye and said he intended to make it as light and as bearable as possible, even when it clearly wasn't."
"And there's no record of that?"
A short, almost incredulous laugh. "Of course there isn't. He didn't want one. Someone suggested documenting it, you know, for leave justification or whatever. He shut it down immediately."
I closed my eyes briefly.
"And when his friend died?" I asked.
"He stayed through it," the voice said quietly. "He was there at the end. After that, he took a little time, then came back and picked up his work, same as before."
The line went quiet for a second.
"Look," he added, more directly now, "if you're trying to find something on him, you're not going to. That's just who he is, and don't call me again."
I thanked him and ended the call, but I didn't move for a while.
The report was still open in front of me. I went back through everything anyway, slower this time. Dates, locations, cross-references. I followed every thread I could find.
There was nothing to expose, nothing to correct, and nothing that suggested she needed protection from him. I leaned back and let that settle, the tension I had carried since the restaurant shifting into something quieter and heavier, something I could no longer ignore.
