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“You did?” The panic washed from his face. “What happened in there?”
“I saw Dr. Cohen.” Cassie was still sorting through the vision, one frame at a time. “I touched her, and I saw Stephanie.”
“What?” Jason looked like he had no idea how to compute that. “Why?”
“She wears a wig.”
He shrugged. “Lots of people wear wigs.”
“No, I know.” She shook her head to clear her mind. “But things aren’t adding up. She dropped her credit card under a vending machine. I think Dr. Cohen was trying to give me a clue.”
“She’s helping?” The elevator arrived, and the two of them stepped inside. An overweight gentleman with a thick head of hair stood in the corner. Jason lowered his voice. “Why would she do that?”
“Just add it to the mystery.” Cassie eyed the other man in the elevator, but he was busy scrolling through his phone. Still, she wouldn’t take any chances. “For now, my aunt seems to be fine.”
“Good.” Jason’s shoulders relaxed. “So, what next?”
The elevator doors opened with a ding, and Cassie stepped out. “I’m hungry. What about you?”
She didn’t know which vending machine Stephanie had been standing in front of, or whether a custodian had collected her credit card, but she was certain the woman had been on the first floor.
“There was a sign for the cafeteria,” she explained. “So, it’s gotta be around here somewhere.”
Jason let Cassie lead him around the entire floor. At the end of every hall, she stopped and stared, trying to determine if it was the same one from her vision. They didn’t find the right vending machine until they had made a complete circuit of the first level. But when she stood near the front entrance and looked back over her shoulder, everything aligned.
A woman and her three-year-old son took their time picking out a bag of chips from the machine. Cassie was already on her hands and knees, sliding her fingers under the machine. It came back covered in dust, but she found what she was looking for.
The two of them moved off to the side and put their heads together. It was a plain Visa credit card with an unfamiliar name stamped on the front.
“Heather Stephens.” Jason looked up at her. “Who’s that?”
“And why would Stephanie have someone else’s credit card?”
Jason pulled out his phone. “Heather Stephens,” he mumbled. “Charli. Stephanie. Nothing associated with those names is coming up.”
“Stephanie was wearing a wig. She looked so similar to Charli, who supposedly died. The second we asked her about Charli, Stephanie abandoned her entire apartment.” Cassie knew there was just one more piece of the puzzle to put together before the whole thing took shape. “If Heather Stephens is on her credit card, maybe that’s her real name.”
Jason deleted a few of his search terms. He hit enter. “She had a Facebook page. And an Instagram.”
“Go to her Instagram.” Cassie waited until he complied. “Scroll through. See if Charli or Stephanie pop up.”
Heather Stephens looked exactly like Stephanie, only she had strawberry blonde hair. She had one tattoo on her stomach, but it was nothing like what Alan had said to describe Charli, and she didn’t have any piercings. Most of her outfits were bohemian, long skirts and flowing tops.
“Heather
hasn’t posted in almost a year. Everything before that is normal, except her most recent picture.” He turned the phone to Cassie so she could see it better. “Rest in peace, Daisy. Bloom eternal.”
“Look up Daisy Stephens obituary.”
Jason swiped his thumbs across the keyboard. “Died a year ago. Look, there’s an entire article on her. She was having surgery on her back and the doctor made a mistake. They paralyzed her from the neck down and she fell into a coma from some bacterial infection. She died shortly after.”
“She could be patient zero,” Cassie offered. “The first one in a long line of deaths due to malpractice. It would fit the pattern.”
“Maybe Heather was the first person to notice something off.” Jason stared at the picture of Daisy. “Maybe she’s doing her own investigation. And that’s why she keeps changing her identity.”
“It’s been a year.” Cassie tried to fight off dejection. “And she hasn’t found enough to come forward?”
“Maybe she has, and that’s why she’s hiding.” Jason clicked on a few more articles, opening and closing them to see if they offered any additional information. “What I don’t understand is how this is happening across multiple hospitals.”
