Chapter 5 - The Nurse They Called a CriminalThree days later, Clara returned toward St. Jude’s.
She had sworn never to enter the hospital again.
Yet the medical board insisted upon inspecting the original records connected toward Dante’s treatment, and the federal investigation required her presence to identify entries she had personally written during the months when he had been registered as Arthur Reed.
The hospital had changed.
Dr. Gable’s portrait was gone.
New administrators occupied the executive offices.
Room 412 was empty.
Clara stood inside it alone for several minutes.
The bullet damage had been repaired.
The oak door had been replaced.
New paint covered the wall where the assassins had driven her backward.
But memory did not care about paint.
She could still see the shattered coffee cup.
The potassium chloride syringe.
Dante’s terrified eyes.
The scalpel inside her hands.
“You should not be here alone.”
Dante’s voice entered behind her.
Clara turned.
He stood inside the doorway wearing a charcoal coat.
The silver cane rested inside his left hand.
Two Falcone guards waited discreetly farther along the corridor.
“You were supposed to remain downstairs.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You walked too much yesterday.”
“I am aware.”
“Your left leg was spasming at breakfast.”
“I am also aware of that.”
Clara crossed both arms.
Dante smiled faintly.
For a man once feared across New England, the expression almost made him look innocent.
Almost.
“You cannot intimidate me with the nurse face anymore.”
“I absolutely can.”
His smile disappeared when he noticed where she was looking.
The bed.
“They changed everything,” Clara said.
“No.”
He entered slowly.
“Not everything.”
He stopped where his hospital bed had once stood.
“You were here.”
Clara looked toward him.
Dante touched the wall.
“I remember every night.”
His voice softened.
“You reading those terrible detective novels.”
“They were not terrible.”
“They were terrible.”
“You cried during 1 of them.”
“I had an involuntary neurological response.”
Clara stared.
Dante’s mouth curved.
She laughed before she could stop herself.
The sound felt strange after 3 days of lawyers, reporters, accusations, and security meetings.
Dante extended his hand.
She took it.
For a moment, Room 412 became something other than a place where they had nearly died.
It became where they had begun.
Then someone screamed inside the hallway.
Dante turned instantly.
One of the guards shouted.
“DOWN.”
A metal object rolled through the doorway.
Clara recognized it as a flash grenade.
Dante grabbed her.
The room exploded with light.
Sound disappeared.
Clara hit the floor beneath Dante.
Her ears rang violently.
Shapes moved through white haze.
A man entered wearing hospital security clothing.
Not Falcone security.
He carried a compact pistol.
Dante reached beneath his coat.
The attacker fired first.
The bullet struck the wall beside Dante.
Clara pulled him behind the bed.
Another shot.
One of the Falcone guards returned fire from the corridor.
The attacker disappeared backward.
Then Clara heard running.
“Stay here,” Dante ordered.
“No.”
“Clara.”
She checked him quickly.
No blood.
No obvious injury.
He attempted to stand.
His recovering leg buckled.
Clara caught him.
Pain twisted across Dante’s face.
“Damn it.”
“You cannot chase him.”
“I was not planning to chase him.”
“You absolutely were.”
Gunfire erupted farther along the corridor.
Then silence.
Matteo’s voice sounded through the radio attached toward Dante’s coat.
“Target moving toward parking structure.”
Dante pressed the transmitter.
“Alive if possible.”
A second voice responded.
“Understood.”
Clara helped Dante into a chair.
His left leg trembled uncontrollably.
Anger appeared inside his eyes.
Not fear.
Anger at his own body.
“You protected me again.”
Clara knelt.
“You protected me first.”
“I fell.”
“You were shot through the spine.”
“Eighteen months ago.”
“And nerves do not care about your schedule.”
Dante looked away.
Clara placed both hands around his face.
“Do not do this.”
His eyes returned.
“You have rebuilt more movement than anyone expected.”
“I should be stronger.”
“You are stronger.”
Her voice hardened.
“Strength is not pretending that damage never happened.”
Dante stared toward her.
Then the anger slowly left.
He covered her hand with his.
“I hate when you are right.”
“That must be difficult because it happens frequently.”
His laugh was brief.
The radio sounded again.
They had caught the attacker.
He was 22 years old.
A temporary hospital maintenance employee.
No criminal record.
No known connection toward Voss Biomedical.
He had not attempted to escape once cornered.
Instead, he repeatedly asked whether his sister was safe.
Gabriel arrived within 30 minutes.
The young attacker sat handcuffed inside an unused conference room.
His name was Evan Cole.
He looked less like an assassin than an exhausted college student.
Gabriel stood across from him.
“Who has your sister?”
Evan’s eyes filled with tears.
“I don’t know.”
“What is her name?”
“Grace.”
“How old?”
“Seventeen.”
“What happened?”
Evan explained.
Grace suffered from epilepsy.
Two months earlier, she had been accepted into an experimental treatment program at a Voss Biomedical clinic.
Last night, Evan received a video.
Grace was unconscious inside a hospital bed.
A man’s voice told him that she would die unless he entered St. Jude’s and fired toward Dante Falcone.
“I wasn’t supposed to kill him.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“You fired at my head.”
“They said the gun had blanks.”
Clara looked toward the weapon on the table.
It contained live ammunition.
Evan began crying.
“They told me nobody would get hurt.”
Gabriel glanced toward Matteo.
“Find Grace Cole.”
Matteo immediately left.
Evan stared.
“You believe me?”
Gabriel looked toward him.
“No.”
Clara spoke.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
She approached Evan.
“Did Grace receive treatment through the Voss Neurological Institute in Cambridge?”
He nodded quickly.
“What medication?”
“I don’t know. They said it was experimental.”
Clara felt cold.
“Did they tell you the name?”
“BX-17.”
Dante saw her expression.
“What?”
Clara looked toward Gabriel.
“Bellweather Experimental.”
The initials.
BX.
Perhaps coincidence.
Perhaps not.
Four hours later, Matteo located Grace.
She was not inside Cambridge.
She had been transferred without family authorization toward a private rehabilitation facility in western Massachusetts.
The building was owned through 4 shell corporations.
The final corporation belonged toward Voss Biomedical.
Gabriel prepared a team.
Clara entered the weapons room as he distributed instructions.
“I am coming.”
“No.”
Gabriel and Dante answered simultaneously.
Clara looked from 1 brother toward the other.
“I am a critical-care nurse. If that girl has been given an experimental neurological drug, you might need me.”
“We can bring physicians,” Gabriel said.
“Physicians who do not know what they are walking into.”
Dante moved closer.
“I will go. You remain here.”
Clara’s expression became almost offended.
“You can barely walk after what happened at St. Jude’s.”
His jaw tightened.
“That is not relevant.”
“It is medically extremely relevant.”
Gabriel rubbed his forehead.
“I had forgotten how peaceful my life was before the 2 of you fell in love.”
Neither responded.
Thirty minutes later, Clara sat inside an armored vehicle between Dante and a portable emergency medical kit.
Gabriel occupied the front.
Nobody acknowledged who had won the argument.
The facility stood inside dense woodland approximately 2 hours west of Boston.
There were no signs.
No visible patients.
No lights except 1 fluorescent strip above the entrance.
Gabriel’s team cut the power and entered through 3 locations.
No resistance came.
That frightened Clara more than gunfire.
The building was almost empty.
They found examination rooms.
Locked cabinets.
Medical equipment.
And hospital beds equipped with leather restraints.
Clara swallowed.
“Dante.”
He looked.
She pointed toward an intravenous pump.
The medication bag was labeled only with a code.
BX-17.
They found Grace Cole inside the final room.
She was alive.
Barely.
Clara pushed everyone aside.
“Light.”
Dante held a flashlight while Clara examined her.
Slow pulse.
Shallow breathing.
Pinpoint pupils.
She connected a portable monitor.
“Her oxygen saturation is falling.”
“What do you need?”
“Bag valve.”
Dante opened the kit.
Their movements fell immediately into the familiar rhythm of Room 412.
Clara worked.
Dante anticipated.
Gabriel watched from the doorway while his brother assisted the woman who had once saved his life.
Grace stabilized after 11 terrifying minutes.
Then Matteo called from the corridor.
“Gabriel.”
There was something inside his voice.
They followed him toward an office.
A wall of photographs covered it.
Children.
Dozens.
Some old.
Some recent.
Each photograph contained a number rather than a name.
Clara walked slowly along them.
Then she stopped.
A picture showed a dark-haired 13-year-old girl.
Number 47.
Lena Ward.
Beside it was another photograph.
Taken recently.
The same woman.
Older.
Alive.
Beneath the image was a printed notation.
SUBJECT 47 — RECOVERED.
Clara’s blood became ice.
Recovered.
Not missing.
Not hiding.
Elias Voss already had Lena.
And they had just walked willingly into 1 of his laboratories.
A speaker inside the ceiling clicked.
Gabriel raised his pistol.
Then an elegant male voice filled the room.
“Good evening, Mr. Falcone.”
Clara stared upward.
“I have been waiting many years to meet the little girl from Mercy House.”
May you like
The voice paused.
“And I must say, Clara, you became far more troublesome than expected.”
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