Kate looked over the final page of the records. It was from Staunton Womens Services, the finer print stating it was a form from the office of Dr. Beatrice Dudley, a reproductive endocrinologist. Kate had no idea what that title meant so, like DeMarco, she looked it up on her phone. Apparently, a reproductive endocrinologist was a fertility specialist who also served primarily, in most cases, as an OBGYN.

But that was where the trail stopped. There was nothing else following the visit to the specialist. Whatever the results were, they were not here in the files. Sure, the fact that the Fullers eventually had a daughter basically told the story, but the fact that the trail came to such an abrupt end seemed peculiar to Kate.

Ive worked with you enough to know that face, DeMarco said. Youre hatching a plan, arent you?

I am. How do you feel about taking a trip out to Waynesboro?

Tonight?

Kate nodded, staring at Wendy Fullers medical files. I think going back to the town they lived in before they had Mercy makes the most sense. We can visit the Womens Services place in Staunton and maybe talk to some people that knew them when they lived there.

I could be up for a late-night road trip. Just let me grab a cup of coffee.

Grab me one, too, please, she said.

As DeMarco left, Kate gathered up all of the records they had accumulated through the latter part of the day. As she started sorting them out into file folders, she couldnt help but feel that there was some big answer buried in it alland that it could very well be hidden somewhere in the Fullers old stomping grounds.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The drive between Deton and Staunton took less than an hour, so Kate and DeMarco were able to relocate without doing so in the middle of the night. They checked in to a Best Western shortly after nine, checked in with Duran back in DC, and found themselves sitting in a motel room with a recorded history of the last final twenty years or so of Wendy and Alvin Fuller printed out before them.

Just as Kate was beginning to go back through all of the medical records, fully prepared to Google each and every test that had been suggested for Wendy Fuller, her phone rang. When she saw Melissas name on the display, she felt like her heart was beating. It was one of those moments where she knew that the call would either bring news so relieving that it would make her feel like she was floating, or so bad that her world would probably never be the same again.

Hey, Lissa, she said as she answered the phone. Do you know anything yet?