Chapter 5 - THE DOCTOR WHO ARRIVED TOO SOON
Dr. Samuel Hart did not disappear.
He did not lawyer up immediately.
He came to the station when Brooks asked.
That made him either innocent, confident, or experienced enough to know running would look worse.
I was not present for his interview.
I learned what he said through Naomi Pierce, who had somehow become my lawyer after one phone call from Damian’s hospital bed.
I protested.
“I can’t pay her.”
Damian apparently had.
That made me angrier.
Naomi said:
“Then consider me temporarily funded through a witness-protection expense account until we decide whether that creates a conflict.”
She was terrifying.
I liked her.
Hart admitted touching Nicholas’s flask.
Not that morning.
Two weeks earlier.
At a dinner in Damian’s study.
Nicholas had offered him bourbon.
That could explain prints.
He admitted his clinic appeared on North Line invoices.
His practice sometimes provided medical clearance for commercial drivers.
North Line had contracted with an occupational-health company that subcontracted his clinic.
Boring.
Plausible.
He admitted arriving early the morning Damian collapsed.
Why?
Because Damian had texted at 6:42 asking him to come before their scheduled appointment.
The text existed.
What did Damian want?
Hart claimed Damian had been experiencing dizziness for three days.
That mattered.
The poisoning may not have begun that morning.
Or the symptoms may have had another cause.
Hart had told him to stop one supplement and come in for bloodwork.
Damian refused because Damian Romano apparently believed hospitals were suggestions.
Also plausible.
Then Brooks asked about Vittorio Romano.
Hart stopped cooperating.
Not entirely.
He asked for a lawyer.
That was the interesting point.
Naomi told me:
“Do not treat requesting counsel as guilt.”
“I know.”
“You said that like you hate knowing.”
“I do.”
Hart eventually explained through counsel.
Vittorio had paid for medical treatment for Hart’s wife ten years earlier.
Cancer.
Expensive experimental program.
She lived another fourteen months.
Hart considered it a debt he could never repay.
Vittorio apparently agreed.
Because he had been collecting on it for a decade.
Favors.
Medical records.
Travel clearances.
Quiet treatment for wounded men.
Nothing Hart admitted involved murder.
Enough to compromise him.
“Did he tamper with Damian’s medication?” I asked.
“No admission.”
“Could he?”
Naomi gave me a look.
“Access is not proof.”
My new least favorite sentence.
“What did he say about the poison?”
“That he did not administer it.”
“Believe him?”
“I believe he is frightened of Vittorio.”
Different.
“Where is Vittorio?”
“His Lake Geneva house is empty.”
“Of course.”
“Phone off.”
“Of course.”
“Border alerts requested.”
I paced my apartment.
Atlas slept beside Ellie’s bed.
Not on it.
That boundary had been negotiated with the handler.
Ellie had gone to school for half a day and come home exhausted from telling every child she now “knew a police dog.”
Atlas was not a police dog.
Technicalities meant nothing to first-graders.
At four, Damian called.
His voice was stronger.
“You have the recording.”
“Yes.”
“Ben’s note?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I laughed despite myself.
“Why does everyone say that?”
“Because if you said yes, you’d be lying.”
Fair.
“Why did you never give me his message?”
Damian exhaled.
“Because I promised him.”
“Dead men don’t get to keep controlling the living.”
“I know that now.”
“Everyone learns after damaging me.”
“That’s fair.”
I sat.
“Did you know Vittorio was behind North Line?”
“I suspected.”
“How long?”
“After Ben died.”
“And Luca?”
“Working for him.”
“Why did you exile Luca instead of confronting Vittorio?”
“Because I did not have proof strong enough to survive accusing my father’s brother.”
I almost laughed.
“You’re Damian Romano.”
“In my world, that makes family accusations more dangerous, not less.”
“What did you do?”
“Cut North Line out of businesses I controlled.”
“Quietly.”
“Yes.”
“Vittorio noticed.”
“Of course.”
“Then why wait three years?”
Damian was silent.
“Damian.”
“Because I thought he was dying.”
“What?”
“Pancreatic cancer. Eighteen months ago.”
“Is he?”
“Apparently not.”
“You never verified?”
“He had doctors.”
“Hart?”
Silence.
There.
“Hart told you?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Maybe Hart lied.”
“Maybe.”
“Why would Vittorio fake dying?”
“To make me stop looking.”
Good reason.
“Did you?”
“For a while.”
At least honest.
“Did Ben know Hart was connected?”
“Not fully.”
“What about the morning you collapsed?”
Damian went quiet.
“What?”
“Did you know someone might target you?”
“Yes.”
My skin chilled.
“And you said nothing to the house.”
“I increased security.”
“That is not the same.”
“I know.”
“Why did Atlas react before anyone else?”
Damian took a breath.
“He smelled the cup.”
“Meaning?”
“After I drank, Atlas started whining.”
“You ignored him.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I got dizzy. Tried to stand. Fell.”
“Atlas blocked everyone.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Damian’s voice softened.
“Ben trained him not to let strangers approach an injured handler until released by a trusted cue.”
“Who knew the cue?”
“Ben. Me.”
“And Ellie?”
“No.”
“But the song.”
“Different cue.”
“What?”
“The song calms him.”
Of course.
“He recognized Ben in her.”
Damian was quiet.
“Probably the melody. Maybe scent association. Dogs are complicated.”
Not magic.
Memory.
“Damian.”
“Yes?”
“What did Ben mean by trust Atlas’s nose before stories?”
“He once caught a man carrying explosive residue after three humans cleared him.”
“Was Atlas trained for the compound used on you?”
“Unknown.”
“Then why Nicholas’s flask?”
“I don’t know.”
Evidence before vengeance.
Again.
At six, Anthony called.
He had reviewed estate camera footage.
One detail.
At 7:58 that morning, a delivery van entered the service gate.
Scheduled delivery:
fresh flowers for the dining room.
Company:
Bell & Ash Floral.
Mrs. Flores said there was no scheduled flower order.
The van stayed nine minutes.
Driver entered service corridor.
Camera showed a baseball cap.
Mask.
Gloves.
No face.
He carried two boxes.
Left with one.
The other went onto the kitchen counter.
Inside?
No one knew.
By the time cameras were reviewed, flower arrangements had been moved throughout the house.
One arrangement had been placed in Damian’s study.
I remembered it.
White lilies.
On the credenza behind his desk.
“Who moved them?” I asked.
Anthony said:
“Temporary kitchen aide.”
“Name?”
“Sophie Lane.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
My stomach tightened.
“Gone how?”
“Her agency says she never came home.”
Missing.
Not fleeing necessarily.
Again, no assumptions.
“What do we know?”
“Twenty-two. Nursing student. Worked two shifts at the estate before today.”
“Connection to Vittorio?”
“None yet.”
“Luca?”
“None.”
“North Line?”
Silence.
Then:
“Her father drove for them.”
There.
“Name?”
“Caleb Lane.”
Ben’s North Line files contained a C. Lane.
I remembered seeing it.
One driver.
Repeated routes.
“What happened to her father?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
“Truck accident two years ago.”
Another crash.
My skin went cold.
“What did Sophie know?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Anthony added:
“There’s more.”
Of course.
“The flower-company van was stolen this morning.”
“When?”
“Six-thirty.”
“From where?”
“Employee lot.”
“So Sophie may not have ordered anything.”
“Right.”
“Could she have been forced?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward Ellie’s room.
Atlas lifted his head.
Then stood.
He walked into the hallway.
Nose up.
Sniffing.
He went to my front door.
Growled.
I froze.
“Anthony.”
“What?”
“Someone’s outside.”
I moved toward Ellie’s bedroom.
Atlas’s growl deepened.
Then came three knocks.
Not pounding.
Weak.
I looked through the peephole.
A young woman stood in the hall.
Hair wet.
Face bruised.
White catering shirt.
She swayed.
“Sophie?”
Her eyes lifted toward the door as if she heard me.
Then she collapsed.
Atlas barked once.
Ellie ran into the hallway.
“Mom?”
I called 911.
Not Damian.
Not Anthony.
Police and ambulance.
Then I opened the door only when the dispatcher told me officers were in the building.
Sophie lay on the carpet.
Conscious barely.
Her fingers were closed around something.
A metal tag.
I recognized the logo from Ben’s files.
North Line Freight.
She looked at me and whispered:
“They made me put the flowers in.”
Then her eyes closed.
And from inside my apartment, Atlas began howling.
Before we left for the storage unit, Damian called again.
This time he asked for Ellie.
I nearly said no out of habit.
Then I asked her.
She took the phone.
“Hi.”
A pause.
“No, Atlas is not eating the couch.”
Another pause.
“He almost did.”
I stared at the dog.
Atlas looked innocent, which on a dog that size was somehow insulting.
Ellie listened.
Then her expression became serious.
“Did Daddy tell you to watch Mama too?”
My chest tightened.
Damian said something long enough that Ellie sat on the arm of the sofa.
“What?”
I asked quietly.
She held up one finger.
Apparently I was not part of the call.
Then she said:
“That’s weird.”
More listening.
“Okay.”
She handed me the phone.
“What did you tell her?”
Damian’s voice was tired.
“The truth she asked for.”
“Which was?”
“Ben asked me to keep an eye on both of you if something happened.”
I closed my eyes.
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Ellie looked between us.
“She said weird because I told her adults sometimes watch people they care about without asking.”
“That is weird.”
“I agree.”
I almost laughed.
“Since when?”
“Since your daughter started correcting me.”
I looked at Ellie.
She was giving Atlas one piece of kibble at a time and making him wait between each one.
Apparently she had taken over training too.
Damian continued:
“Mara.”
“Yes?”
“When this is over, you do not owe me work.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I hired you partly because of Ben.”
“I know.”
“That means your employment was never fully honest.”
“No.”
“If you want to leave, you leave.”
The words should have been obvious.
Instead they mattered.
“Are you firing me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because I want the pleasure of quitting if I choose.”
Damian laughed weakly.
“Fair.”
I hung up.
For the first time since the crash in the study, I understood something uncomfortable.
Damian’s power had shaped every choice in the house, even choices he never explicitly made.
People anticipated him.
Protected him from information.
Protected themselves from his reactions.
Ben had known that.
Maybe that was why his final note kept returning to verification instead of loyalty.
May you like
Power did not only change what a man could do.
It changed what everyone around him thought they were allowed to say.
