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“A tooth?”
“Apparently the medical examiner’s office recovered thousands of bone fragments from the ruins of the towers, hundreds of which were teeth.”
“How is that even possible, Ave?”
“By filtering through the debris. Over the years, several sifting projects have been completed. The goal of these operations is to tediously sort through the rubble cleared from Ground Zero in order to find artifacts. Each time a sifting program is completed, more items are discovered. Wallets, driver’s licenses, wedding rings, jewelry, bone fragments, and . . .”
“Teeth.”
“Hundreds of them.”
“Good Lord.”
“Livia Cutty tells me that most of these small bone fragments and teeth are still waiting to be matched to victims. So, if Victoria Ford was identified from a single tooth found in the rubble of the Twin Towers, and no other specimens have been matched to her . . . What if Victoria Ford was injured during the chaos of 9/11, as in, she lost a tooth, but still managed to escape the towers?”
When Christine failed to respond, Avery continued.
“Thousands died when the towers collapsed. But thousands more made it safely out of the buildings. What if Victoria was one of them?”
“How? The hospitals were flooded that day. She never sought medical attention?”
“Maybe she didn’t need it,” Avery said. “And if it were something as minor as a few broken or lost teeth, maybe her friend—who was an emergency medicine physician—helped her.”
“Natalie Ratcliff.”
“Exactly,” Avery said, standing up and walking over to the bed where Victoria’s manuscripts rested. “And in a crazy way—yes, a bat-shit-crazy, Avery-Mason-presents way—I think Victoria’s manuscripts prove it.”
Christine shook her head. “I’ll say one thing. Your flare for the sensational is unparalleled. Make the connection for me.”
“Before I interviewed Natalie Ratcliff, I bought a couple of her books so I could skim through them. One of them, Baggage, hooked me and I read the whole thing. When I met with Emma Kind a second time, she pulled a bunch of old boxes out of her attic. They were filled with things from Victoria’s childhood, and I planned to sort through the boxes to see if any of those things were useful for the documentary. To see if any of those items would help me paint a fuller picture of Victoria Ford. In one of the boxes, I found the flash drive that contained Victoria’s manuscripts. As soon as I started reading the first one, I noticed the similarities to Natalie Ratcliff’s first novel. I went back to the bookstore and purchased Natalie’s entire backlist and started skimming them.”
Avery pointed to the bed where a Natalie Ratcliff novel rested on top of each of Victoria Ford’s manuscripts.
“According to Emma, Victoria wrote five manuscripts. Each of those manuscripts ended up becoming a Natalie Ratcliff novel. Not just a similar storyline, but a verbatim text. It was in Victoria Ford’s lost manuscripts that Peg Perugo was born.”
“Couldn’t the explanation be that Victoria shared her manuscripts with Natalie Ratcliff at some point before her death? Maybe to get a friend’s feedback? Then, after her friend died, Ratcliff took the manuscripts as her own? And, out of all this”—Christine pointed at the bed—“the only crime committed was plagiarism?”
“Except that Emma Kind swears Victoria didn’t share her manuscripts with anyone. Like I said, not even her husband.”
“Okay,” Christine said. “You’ve hooked me. Let’s take Victoria Ford’s sister at her word. No one ever saw Victoria’s manuscripts. That explains the first five Ratcliff books, which represent the five manuscripts Victoria wrote before 9/11. Where did the next ten Ratcliff books come from?”
Avery took a deep breath. “What if Victoria survived the morning of 9/11? She made it out of the North Tower just like thousands of others. She was injured in the process and sought the help of her best friend, who was a physician. Then, as the enormity of events materialized that morning, a thought came to her. What if, in addition to watching one of the most infamous events in American history unfold, Victoria Ford was also watching the opportunity to make her impossible situation go away? She’d already made the calls to Emma. The recordings were proof that she was in the North Tower. Then she asked Natalie, not just for help with whatever injuries she sustained, but to help her disappear. Wherever Victoria is today, she’s still writing manuscripts and sharing them with Natalie Ratcliff.”
“Wow,” Christine said. “That’s definitely Avery Mason-esque. But . . . I mean, it’s been twenty years. How has an ER doctor and her best friend, a financial adviser, managed to keep this quiet for so long? And how did they pull it off in the first place? Where would Victoria Ford be hiding for twenty years?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, but that’s where I need your help.” Avery smiled at Christine. “You didn’t have plans for the Fourth of July, did you?”
“I work for Avery Mason and American Events,” Christine said. “My personal life always comes last.”
“I can’t tell if you’re saying that proudly or with a chip on your shoulder.”
“Little bit of both. Tell me what you need. I’ll do my best.”
CHAPTER 45
Manhattan, NY Sunday, July 4, 2021
WALT WAS PERSPIRING AND THE FLOW OF BLOOD THROUGH HIS throbbing carotid was audible inside his head as he walked through the front entrance of the Lowell Hotel on Sunday evening. He carried with him the cardboard box Scott Sherwood had fished from the cobwebbed corners of the BCI evidence room. The front desk clerk smiled as Walt checked in. The woman called up to Avery’s room to let her know she had a guest. The clerk nodded her go-ahead, and Walt headed toward the elevator. He stopped at a dispenser to gulp down a glass of iced lemon water, noticing his hand’s tremor as he lifted the glass to his mouth. He was either out of practice as a surveillance agent for the FBI, or he knew somewhere inside that what he was about to do was wrong.
