Page 80 of Override

Maeve Gallagher. Nothing. Maeve O'Donnell. Nothing. Maeve G. Nothing.

I swear beneath my breath before widening the search. First names. Middle names. Misspellings. Hyphenated names. Anything remotely close. Nothing.

"No..." I lean back, rubbing a hand over my jaw while my eyes drift across the transaction history again.

Cash. No electronic trail. Almost like… Almost like someone wanted her impossible to find.

I freeze.

Mary Collins.

The name hits me out of nowhere. Not because it means anything. Because it doesn't. It was the last name she'd signed into the clinic with. A name so ordinary I'd dismissed it without a second thought.

Until now. "...No way."

I type it in.

Mary Collins.

The screen refreshes. One result. Then another. Another. Another. My stomach drops. The first clinic. The second. The third. The fourth. Every single visit. Same birthday. Same emergency contact. Same woman. I stare at the screen while the pieces slam together so violently it almost makes me sick.

She hadn't been hiding. Someone had been hiding her.

I stop typing. "...What the fuck?"

The first visit was three hours away. The second nearly two. The third almost four. None of them close enough for anyone to notice a pattern.

Unless...Unless someone was looking for one.

I pull up every address. Pin them on a map. Red markers begin spreading across Illinois like blood droplets. No hospital systems connected. No shared records. No electronic trail. Just isolated visits. Someone wanted them buried. Someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure nobody ever connected them.

Unfortunately for Ronan...Connecting dots is what I do.

I grab my keys before I can talk myself out of it.

The first clinic is forty-seven minutes from the estate.

The woman behind the reception desk studies Maeve's picture for nearly a full minute before sliding it back toward me.

"I'm sorry. I can't confirm whether someone's been treated here."

"I didn't ask if she had."

A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "No." She folds her hands together. "You didn't."

Progress.

"I just need to know if you've seen her."

Her eyes drift back to the photograph. Long enough that I catch the hesitation before she looks away.

"I'm sorry." It's polite. Practiced. Final.

I thank her anyway.

The second clinic goes exactly the same. Different receptionist. Different waiting room. Different apology.

By the time I pull back onto the highway, frustration has settled beneath my skin.