chapter six

Tammy's POV

I close the front door of my house with a sigh, sliding down it and letting out a huff as I bury my face in my palms. As I try to shake off the feeling of unease, I realize I need to take action.

I left the cafe feeling even more drained than I did when I got there. The encounter is still fresh in my mind, and I'm torn between helping out the mystery man's people and avoiding him and the mystery surrounding him.

An idea strikes me, that has me jumping up from my place on the ground and scrambling around to find my laptop, as I'm determined to uncover more information about the mystery man.

After a few minutes of searching, I finally find the laptop in my room, under a pile of clothes on my beanbag chair.

"How did it even get here?" I chuckle, picking it up and turning it on as I move to sit on my bed.

I open a browser and begin typing to search for the mystery man, but then it hits me that I don't even know his name or any means of finding out who he is.

I jog my memory, looking for a possible direction to show me how to go about it. "Eureka!"

The man from the hospital was a relative, so if I can find out where he came from, I might have a chance of knowing about the identity of the man, and the town he comes from.

The realization that I don't have any information about the man that can help me out dawns on me.

I decide to call Nurse Roseline, seeing as she's the head nurse at the hospital, in hopes that she might be able to provide some insight.

I pick up my phone and dial her number. She picks up on the second ring. "Hi, ma'am," I greet her.

"Tammy, how are you doing, dear?" she asks.

"I'm good," I reply. "I called to ask about the patient from two days ago."

"What about him?" she asks.

I know my next request is out of bounds, as we aren't meant to disclose patient information, so I cross my fingers and say a silent prayer in hopes that she'd budge. "I need his medical record," I tell her. Her end of the line goes quiet, so I quickly explain, twisting the truth a bit. "Honestly, what I really need is the name and number of the man who came to claim his body yesterday. I need to know his identity, as he mistakenly left something of his with me."

"Alright, dear," she says. I begin rejoicing, then her voice comes through again, cutting it short. "You could just bring whatever it is to the hospital, we'll take care of handing it back to him."

Squeezing my eyes shut, I mumble some profanities under my breath - which I hope she didn't hear.

Trying to make my voice as pleasant as possible and hiding the frustration in it, I reply. "No ma'am, you really do not have to. I don't want to put you through the stress of it. Besides, he left it with me and I feel it's my responsibility to return it back personally."

"If that's the case, I'll help you out. But you must promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise, ma'am," I say.

Nurse Roseline hesitates for a moment, and I hear some shuffling in the background before speaks up. "I'll send you a picture of his record. But you have to delete it after you're done."

"Yes, ma'am," I say, and she ends the call.

My phone beeps, and I check my email to see that Nurse Roseline has already sent the record. With her information in hand, I sit down at my laptop to continue my research. I get to work, reading through the details while watching out for any information about where he's from. I spot it in the lower section of the page – he's from a small town on the outskirts of the city.

I search for small towns in the area, but there are too many to narrow down. I decide to change my strategy and search for towns with recurring sicknesses. Still, I don't find anything that stands out.

As I stare at the search results, I start to feel frustrated. How can one person be so hard to find? I've already spent four hours searching, and still, I have nothing tangible.

In normal circumstances, I would end everything and avoid the man entirely, but there's something in me that keeps pushing me to find him even when everything about him screams for me not to.

Now I'm torn between giving up and continuing my search.

"Just a sign, just a sign, just a sign," I mutter as I take a closer look at the his records, hoping to find information that I may have missed. Just as I am about to finally give up, something catches my eye – a mention of a street name that seems familiar.

"Why hadn't I seen this before?"

I go to the search engine on my computer and type in the name of the street. When it's done loading, I make a search on the town the street is in.

Crossing my fingers, I close my eyes and say a short prayer, hoping that I've finally gotten to a solution.

On opening my eyes, I'm left broken by the results I see. "The town was emptied ten years ago?"