Chapter 35: Puzzle with a lot of missing pieces

Ivy opened the file she had retrieved from her father's study. Though it had been three years and the papers had gone a little yellow at the edges, it was still in good condition. She scanned through the list on each sheet.

The names of the victims were listed under the hospital they had been operated in and it was in a chronological order. There were twenty-three hospitals in total. All the doctor's names were also mentioned in it, beside the patient they had operated on. She went through each hospital's list and noted the doctor's name. Every time the name repeated, she added a plus next to it. There were fifty-six doctors and the most number of patients was handled by a person named, George Hardin. He had operated on 67 cases.

After going through the entire file, she opened her laptop to make a search on the hospitals on the internet. She found that all the hospitals recorded in the file had been closed and their medical license had been canceled in the last three years after her father disappeared, except for one hospital. It was the Royal Health Care Hospital. She remembered at once that it was the same hospital where she and Aria had gone to meet the nurse who had proclaimed to have seen her father.

"Wow, who could have done this?" New results on the case had been obtained now and Ivy was a little excited. She continued to explore more about the hospitals and found interesting things about them. All those hospitals had been opened for less than a decade before they were forced to shut down. She went through the trustee's names and management of all the hospitals. She discovered that in every hospital's management, there was a person with the surname Grimes. But all the first names were different. Some were females, while some were males.

"Are these people from the same family?" Ivy wondered, making a note of the surname Grimes on her notepad. She then typed the name Grimes on the Internet in hopes of getting some information. Unfortunately, there was no data about it. She thought of searching about the doctors listed in the file. Just like the Grimes, there was no information about them.

Ivy stretched her hands. She had been sitting on the chair for quite a long time. Her neck had gone sore and her legs had become numb. She got up and went to the kitchen. She prepared herself a cup of hot chocolate and sat on the sofa in the hall. She switched on the TV and surfed through the channels. There was nothing eye-catching. The news channels were repeating the telecast of the President's press meet. She had seen most of the movies that were being played. So, she switched to a business channel. One of the channels was reporting the rise and fall of currency while another channel was displaying the top 10 businessmen in the country. This immediately caught her fancy.

Ivy folded her legs and held her cup of hot chocolate, looking intently at the TV screen.

It was now the turn for the top 3 businessmen to be announced. Ivy took a sip of the hot chocolate, but immediately chocked on it when she heard who was holding the third position. It was Joshua Martin. She had sensed that he was not a normal person on their first meet. But she did not know that he was this rich and influential. She did not know much about him and it was not her mistake. Joshua had remained low-key and not many people had seen his face or known about his business. It was only in the recent months, when one of the video games his company had launched became famous at an international level, that people started observing his every move.

The second place was held by an anonymous person. Nobody knew who he was or what he looked like. They did not even know his name. It was only revealed that he owned the pharmaceutical company, Royal Pharmaceuticals. He was also the Director of the Royal Health Care Hospital.

Ivy's mouth dropped open slightly in surprise. She ran to her room, while the TV was still on and was declaring Noah Allen Carter to be the sole winner by being first in the ranking.

Ivy opened the search engine again and typed Royal Pharmaceuticals. She found all about it, the date when it was started, its net investments, annual profits, the medicines they manufactured. But she could not find anything related to who operated it. As she had heard on the TV, there was no mention of the person who owned it. She then searched about Royal Health Care hospital. Just like the previous result, she couldn't get the name of the person she wanted. She also noted that there was no person having a surname Grimes on the management.

Ivy pulled her hair in frustration. Even though she had got various leads, none of them connected properly. "First there is the Grimes and I don't know where to find them. Next there is this anonymous Director who was my Dad's doctor. But nobody even knows his name, let alone see his face. Who should I approach for help now?" Ivy muttered dropping her head on the table with a loud thud. Joshua's face crossed her mind at the next instant.

"Yes. I could ask for his help. Maybe he could help me dig out information on the Grimes. Yes." Ivy picked her phone to make a call to Joshua. However, she realized it was quite late. So, she thought of giving him a call in the morning. She then continued her search on the case. She remembered the document given to her by Max. It was a case of a similar type. She pulled her backpack and removed the document. She read the document and there was only one instance mentioned in it. She typed the name of the clinic referred to in it, Good City Clinic. There was nothing significant about it except for the fact that it was less than six months old. She could find no further information on it.

Ivy closed her laptop and sighed. Everything was just like a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces. She knew that now only Joshua could help her. She groaned thinking about the flirt.

"It's okay. You are doing for your Dad. Just endure him for a while." Ivy patted her heart as she knew she could do nothing about it.