Chapter 7 - The Woman in the White RoomThe first clue came from Leo’s stuffed lion.
Not the one he had given Marco.
The other one.
The one he claimed existed.
At 3:46 a.m., Sarah entered Leo’s room after the estate had been declared secure.
He was still there.
Alive.
Sleeping beneath armed protection.
Sophia sat beside the bed holding his hand.
The photograph had been real.
Someone had entered the room.
But they had not taken him.
Which meant Isabella could have.
She had chosen not to.
That frightened Sarah more.
“It was a message,” Sophia whispered.
“Yes.”
“How did they get inside?”
“We’re finding out.”
Sarah bent and kissed Leo’s forehead.
On the floor beside his bed lay another stuffed lion.
She frowned.
Leo had told Marco he owned two.
Sarah had assumed he was lying.
She picked it up.
It was new.
The fur was too clean.
The stitching different.
Her nursing instincts reacted before her conscious mind did.
Foreign object.
Something about the weight was wrong.
“Mateo.”
He appeared in the doorway.
Sarah held up the toy.
“This isn’t his.”
Mateo took it.
Within five minutes, security had opened the seam.
Inside was a camera.
Microphone.
GPS beacon.
And a thin piece of paper.
Sarah unfolded it.
A handwritten address.
No city.
No state.
Just:
1208 Halsted.
Below it:
ASK SARAH WHAT SHE SMELLED.
Dominic read the message.
His eyes lifted.
“What you smelled?”
Sarah thought back.
Five years.
Hospital.
Leo dying.
The strange odor amid antiseptic.
“Burnt almonds.”
Marco frowned.
“Cyanide?”
“No.”
Sarah shook her head.
“That’s what I thought at first, but it wasn’t exactly almonds.”
She closed her eyes, remembering.
“Sweet. Chemical. Almost fruity.”
Dominic waited.
Then Sarah remembered something else.
The new sedative.
OxyPent.
Centurion Medical.
“The preservative.”
She moved to the laptop.
“It wasn’t random contamination. Someone chose a chemical that created the reaction.”
Marco leaned over her shoulder.
“What does the smell tell us?”
“Manufacturing process.”
Sarah searched the Centurion documents.
One plant stood out.
An abandoned pharmaceutical research facility.
Address:
1208 South Halsted Street.
Chicago.
Dominic picked up his jacket.
“Too obvious.”
“Yes,” Sarah said.
“But it’s meant for me.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“I know.”
That answer surprised her.
He looked at Marco.
“My brother comes.”
Marco nodded.
“Mateo?”
“Yes.”
Sarah stood.
“And me.”
Dominic looked at her.
This time, there was no argument.
“Stay between us.”
The facility looked abandoned from the street.
Broken windows.
Graffiti.
A rusting sign reading MARSHALL BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH.
But beneath the decay, power still ran.
Sarah saw a security camera move.
“They know we’re here.”
Dominic touched the gun beneath his coat.
“That’s the point.”
The front door unlocked by itself.
Inside, fluorescent lights flickered on one after another.
Leading them down a corridor.
Marco muttered, “I hate theatrical people.”
Dominic glanced at him.
“You sent me a photograph saying the wrong boy inherited the name.”
“That was concise.”
“Of course.”
Sarah almost smiled.
Even surrounded by danger, the two had begun behaving like brothers.
That fact frightened them both.
They reached a white door.
It opened.
Beyond it was a laboratory.
Modern.
Clean.
Operational.
A woman sat alone at a long white table.
Her hair was silver.
Her posture perfect.
She wore a cream suit and pearl earrings.
Dominic stopped.
Sarah knew immediately.
Isabella Moretti.
The woman looked at Dominic with extraordinary calm.
“My son.”
Dominic’s gun appeared.
“Don’t call me that.”
Isabella looked toward Marco.
“And you.”
Marco’s weapon rose.
“Where is Gabriel?”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
“In time.”
Marco stepped forward.
Dominic caught him.
Isabella smiled.
“How touching. Two boys who spent forty years apart need less than two days to become protective.”
Sarah studied her.
No fear.
No visible guards.
That meant either Isabella was insane or she knew nobody in the room could hurt her.
Sarah suspected the second.
“Why did you bring us here?” Sarah asked.
Isabella looked at her.
Her gaze sharpened.
“Sarah Jenkins.”
“Moretti.”
“Yes.”
Isabella smiled.
“The nurse who ruined everything.”
Sarah pulled out a chair and sat opposite her.
Dominic looked at her as if she had lost her mind.
Sarah ignored him.
“You tried to kill Leo.”
“No.”
“You sabotaged his machine.”
“I created a test.”
Dominic’s gun moved closer to her head.
Sarah raised one hand.
“Let her talk.”
Isabella looked pleased.
“You are exactly what the reports said.”
“What reports?”
“The ones we have maintained on you since nursing school.”
Sarah froze.
“What?”
“Your father’s gambling debt. Your scholarships. Your aptitude scores. Your interest in obsolete toxicological reactions.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Sarah stared.
“You knew who I was before that night.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because we placed you at St. Jude’s.”
The room became very still.
Sarah felt as though someone had reached inside her past and rearranged it.
“No.”
“Your employment application was initially rejected.”
Sarah remembered.
She had received the rejection email.
Then three days later, someone from HR called saying a position had opened.
“You changed it.”
“We needed someone unusual near the child.”
Dominic’s voice became lethal.
“You used her.”
“We tested her.”
“For what?”
Isabella turned toward Sarah.
“To see whether instinct could defeat conditioning.”
Sarah frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Isabella leaned back.
“Leo was never intended to die.”
“You stopped his heart.”
“For fifty-two seconds.”
“He was a newborn.”
“And Sarah saved him.”
Sarah’s stomach turned.
“The doctors could have killed him.”
“They were instructed not to.”
“They pushed epinephrine.”
“That was not part of the protocol.”
For the first time, irritation crossed Isabella’s face.
“Sterling panicked.”
Sarah stared at her.
“You gambled with a baby’s life.”
“I evaluated the future of an empire.”
Marco slammed both hands on the table.
“WHERE IS MY SON?”
Isabella looked at him.
“Gabriel is undergoing the same evaluation.”
Marco’s face went white.
Sarah stood instantly.
“What did you give him?”
“Nothing lethal.”
“What did you give him?”
“A controlled dose of compound seventeen.”
Sarah knew the reference from Centurion records.
Her stomach dropped.
“That drug suppresses respiratory drive.”
“Yes.”
“In children it can cause seizures.”
“Rarely.”
Marco pointed his gun at Isabella’s face.
“Tell me where he is.”
Isabella did not blink.
“If you kill me, you will never find him.”
Marco’s finger tightened.
Dominic said, “Marco.”
“Don’t.”
“Put it down.”
“She drugged my son.”
“And killing her wastes time.”
Marco’s chest rose and fell.
Finally, he lowered the gun.
Isabella smiled.
“Dominic was always the rational one.”
Sarah stared at the woman.
“No.”
Isabella looked at her.
“You made one mistake.”
“Which?”
“You think Dominic is still the boy you raised.”
Sarah stepped closer.
“He isn’t.”
“I know exactly what he is.”
“No, you know what he was trained to become.”
Sarah glanced at Dominic.
“He changed.”
“Because of you?”
“Because he chose to.”
Isabella’s smile faded slightly.
Sarah continued.
“That’s why you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yes, you do.”
Sarah circled the table.
“You could control Dominic when he believed everyone eventually betrayed him. Then he got a family.”
Isabella’s jaw tightened.
“You turned the Moretti organization sentimental.”
Sarah laughed softly.
“That’s your problem?”
“Sentiment destroys dynasties.”
“No.”
Sarah stopped behind Isabella.
“People who think love makes them weak destroy dynasties.”
Isabella turned.
For the first time, anger appeared.
Sarah knew she had found the wound.
A monitor on the wall turned on.
Gabriel appeared.
He lay on a hospital bed.
Unconscious.
Marco lunged toward the screen.
“Gabriel!”
A pulse monitor beside the child showed seventy-four.
Then seventy-two.
Sarah stared.
“His respiratory rate.”
Eight.
Seven.
“Where is he?”
Isabella said nothing.
Sarah looked around the laboratory.
White walls.
Medical equipment.
No windows in Gabriel’s room.
But something appeared behind his bed.
A yellow pipe.
Industrial.
Sarah’s eyes narrowed.
She had seen that pipe.
Where?
Then she remembered the Centurion property plans.
Underground steam infrastructure.
“Marshall plant has two buildings.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“The original manufacturing wing was demolished.”
Sarah turned toward Mateo.
“But the basement wasn’t.”
Mateo pulled up the site plan.
“There’s a sublevel beneath us.”
Marco was already moving.
Isabella smiled.
“You won’t reach him in time.”
Sarah grabbed the emergency medical case.
“Watch me.”
They ran.
The elevator required a code.
Dominic shot the panel.
Nothing.
Sarah looked at the wall.
Fire evacuation map.
Stairs.
“East corridor!”
They sprinted.
Two guards appeared.
Mateo fired.
Dominic dropped the second.
Marco never slowed.
They reached a steel door.
Locked.
Dominic stepped back.
“Charge.”
Mateo placed explosive tape around the lock.
“DOWN.”
The blast tore the door open.
They descended.
Sarah heard a monitor alarm.
Gabriel.
They entered the underground laboratory.
A boy lay exactly as shown on the screen.
Dark hair.
Pale face.
Small chest barely moving.
Marco stopped.
For one second, the hardened man disappeared.
“Gabriel.”
Sarah pushed past him.
“Let me work.”
She checked pupils.
Pulse.
Airway.
“Compound seventeen depresses breathing. We need naloxone analogue B and respiratory support.”
A tray beside the bed held syringes.
Sarah checked labels.
Nothing.
“Bag valve!”
Dominic found one.
Sarah positioned the mask.
“Marco, hold it here.”
His hands shook.
“Like this?”
“Yes. Gentle. One breath every three seconds.”
“I’m hurting him.”
“You’re helping him.”
Gabriel’s oxygen saturation fell.
Sarah opened the emergency case.
No analogue B.
Of course.
Isabella had planned that.
Sarah looked at the IV line.
Compound seventeen was lipid soluble.
There was another method.
“Do we have intralipid?”
Mateo searched.
“No.”
Sarah looked around.
Laboratory refrigerator.
She opened it.
Nutrition solutions.
Among them—
Lipid emulsion.
“Yes.”
She grabbed the bag.
Dominic watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Pulling the drug out of his bloodstream.”
She inserted the line.
Minutes passed.
Seventy-five became seventy-eight.
Then eighty-three.
Gabriel coughed.
Marco nearly collapsed.
“Gabriel?”
The boy’s eyelids moved.
“Dad?”
Marco made a sound Sarah had never heard from a grown man.
He bent over his son.
“I’m here.”
Gabriel touched his face.
“You came.”
“Always.”
Dominic looked away.
Sarah saw his eyes.
He was thinking about Leo.
They carried Gabriel upstairs.
Isabella was gone.
Of course.
On the white table sat a single envelope.
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a handwritten message.
SARAH PASSED.
MARCO PASSED.
DOMINIC FAILED.
THE BOYS WILL DECIDE THE REST.
Dominic crumpled the paper.
Sarah stared at the empty chair.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“She didn’t escape.”
“She knew the building.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Sarah looked toward the hidden cameras.
“She wanted us to save Gabriel.”
Marco carried his son close.
“Why?”
Sarah looked at the message again.
“The tests aren’t about killing the heirs.”
“What are they about?”
She thought of Leo.
Gabriel.
Dominic.
Marco.
Then she understood.
“She’s choosing someone.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“For what?”
May you like
Sarah looked at him.
“For the White Table.”
