I had to laugh. “Yeah, it’s been pretty torturous.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I started with ambulance call-outs then narrowed it down to walk-ins to the ER department.”
“Why?”
“Because the ambulance call-outs’ source ran dry but also because, if this is a whack job conspiracy, maybe the person who needed an ambulance to get to a hospital could have ‘died’ en route.”
“I felt like Eoghan was saying there was one person on the job.”
“He did. But does that seem likely for a mission of this scale? Plus, he’s known for being a sniper. Would you send a sniper in to start a car crash?” I hitched a shoulder. “I’m not a spy so I don’t know, but I’d assume that people have talents and these kinds of divisions have teams to fulfill certain tasks.”
“Logical assumption.” She took a sip of coffee. “Operation: Snake may have a different method.”
I laughed. “That’s a less grandiose title.”
She just toasted me with her mug. “Okay, so you’ve come to me about this while I’m assimilating keywords for a reason, I’m guessing? And not just because you want a wage increase from unpaid data analyst to paid hacker?”
Snorting, I informed her, “I want a better job title than that. And a corner office with windows.”
She hid her grin behind her mug of coffee. “Technically, you have an office with a view.”
I looked straight at her. “You’re right. I do.” When she blushed, I smirked, pleased with the reaction which I promptly ignored to reason, “Anyway, as I was saying, it took a lot of digging and my code outdid itself as I’m sure will come as no surprise.” Her eye roll told me I was reaching. “But I found one patient on the twenty-fourth of February who walked into an ER in Cincinnati, complaining of a fractured wrist after being involved in a vehicular incident in New Cloverfield.”
“And?”
“That vehicular incident was never recordedanywhere.”
“So the medical insurance never paid out?”
“Nope. Remember I said my code outdid itself? I had it trawl through fucking claims all night too. Honestly, the code deserves the office with a window and not me.”
“You think that’s the crash in question?”
I shrugged. “Not sure. But it’s funky, isn’t it?”
“Not really. Lots of things could be filed under ‘vehicular incident.’”
Because I’d trapped her in a corner, I smirked. “This patient went on to be remanded into a mental health facility for speaking about a massive pile-up that occurred on their main exit out of the town. She apparently went crazy at the local police station and attacked one of the cops when he told her she was losing her mind.”
“What?!”
I nodded.
“The bastard was gaslighting her!”
“Seems like it. The insurance paid outthattime. On her medical records, she states that three vehicles were involved. It’s a road that people commute through to get to Cincinnati so it’s busy with out-of-towners.”
“How big is New Cloverfield?”
“Not big. But it’s mostly a township. Clusters of houses around a lake.”
“Huh. What happened to her? Can we find her to question her?”
I winced. “That’s the sad part. She killed herself. Unrelated to that, I think. But who knows? Her husband died and they had a ton of medical debt. That fracture she got in the crash, there were complications. She needed surgery and you know how that can run up the costs.”
“All of a sudden, you owe a hundred grand for being involved in a crash that the cops say didn’t happen. I think I’d have lost my shit too.”