Chapter 2 - The Phone Call From a Dead Man
Marco Duca had spent ten years refusing to listen to his father's voice.
Now that voice was calling him.
The phone vibrated against his desk, illuminating the name Anthony Duca in bright white letters.
Marco stared at it.
His father had been buried on a cold November morning, beneath a gray sky, while three hundred men stood silently around the family mausoleum.
Marco remembered the smell of wet leaves.
He remembered his mother's empty chair.
He remembered Victor Salerno standing beside him, promising that nothing would ever happen to him while Victor was alive.
And he remembered deleting his father's final voicemail without listening to it.
For ten years, that had been the one decision he could never undo.
The phone continued ringing.
Marco answered.
He said nothing.
For several seconds, there was only a low electrical hum.
Then a man's voice spoke.
“Marco.”
His knees nearly gave way.
It was his father's voice.
Older.
Rougher.
Impossibly familiar.
Marco gripped the edge of the desk.
“Who is this?”
A pause.
“If you're hearing this, the man beside you has already betrayed us.”
Marco stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“Do not trust Victor Salerno.”
Then the call disconnected.
Marco remained motionless.
He had imagined hearing his father's voice thousands of times.
In dreams.
In crowded restaurants.
In the mechanical click of old watches.
But he had never imagined hearing it warn him about the man he trusted most.
Dr. Hale entered the study.
“Marco, we've arranged transport to the hospital. You need monitoring tonight, not tomorrow.”
Marco turned slowly.
“Someone just called me using my father's old number.”
Hale frowned.
“That's impossible.”
“So is being poisoned inside my own house.”
Marco opened his call history.
The call had come through an internet-based service that displayed his father's former number.
Someone had gone to considerable trouble to create the illusion.
And whoever had done it possessed a recording of Anthony Duca's voice.
Marco called his technology director.
“Preserve every available record of the call,” he ordered. “Do not attempt anything illegal. Coordinate with the investigators and the telephone provider.”
The man agreed.
Then Marco called Anthony Mercer.
The phone rang once.
Twice.
On the third ring, Marco heard an engine roaring.
Then tires screamed.
“Anthony?”
“Boss, we're being followed.”
Marco stood.
“Location.”
“Sheridan Road. Heading south. Black SUV, no visible plates.”
A violent impact sounded through the phone.
Elena screamed.
Marco felt his chest tighten.
“Anthony!”
“We're moving!”
Another impact.
Metal scraped against metal.
Then the call went dead.
Marco seized his jacket.
Hale stepped in front of him.
“You cannot go charging into another situation. Your heart rhythm has been unstable.”
“Move.”
“Marco, listen to me.”
“My employee and a woman with a sick child are being hunted because someone tried to murder me.”
Hale stood firm.
“Then let the police respond. You collapsing on the roadside won't save either of them.”
For one furious second, Marco considered pushing past him.
Then another wave of dizziness struck.
He braced one hand against the desk.
Hale caught his elbow.
“That's what I'm talking about.”
Marco hated the weakness.
He hated the fact that he could command hundreds of people but could not trust his own body to remain standing.
Most of all, he hated that Elena had become another person in danger because of him.
He forced himself to sit.
“Call the police,” he said through clenched teeth. “Give them the vehicle details and last known location. Now.”
Inside the sedan, Elena had one hand gripping the overhead handle and the other clutching her phone.
The black SUV slammed against them again.
Anthony fought to keep the sedan on the road.
“Get down!”
Elena bent forward as something struck the rear window.
Glass fractured.
The sedan swerved.
A horn blared as they crossed into another lane.
Anthony corrected sharply.
Elena heard sirens somewhere in the distance.
“Police?” she gasped.
“I sent our location before they hit us.”
The SUV moved alongside.
Elena caught a glimpse of the driver.
Black baseball cap.
Short beard.
A pale scar near his jaw.
Then the man turned toward her.
He smiled.
Something about that smile made her colder than the attack itself.
He wasn't simply trying to frighten them.
He wanted her to recognize him.
Anthony slowed abruptly near a well-lit gas station where several cars were parked.
The SUV overshot them.
Anthony turned into the station and stopped directly in front of the convenience-store windows.
“Out,” he ordered. “Inside. Now.”
Elena stumbled out.
Her legs almost collapsed beneath her.
Anthony followed, keeping himself between her and the road.
A clerk behind the counter shouted something as they rushed inside.
“Call 911!” Anthony told him.
Elena looked through the glass.
The SUV had stopped beyond the intersection.
For three seconds, the driver watched them.
Then the vehicle accelerated away.
Elena pulled out her phone.
She had twenty-three missed calls from Mrs. Harper.
Her stomach dropped.
She called immediately.
“Elena?” the older woman answered, her voice shaking. “Honey, there are two men outside.”
Elena felt the room tilt.
“What men?”
“They say they're from the hospital. They say something's wrong with Sophie's appointment.”
“Don't open the door.”
“I haven't.”
“Where's Sophie?”
“In the upstairs bedroom.”
“Stay with her.”
A loud knock sounded through the phone.
Then a male voice.
“Mrs. Harper, we're authorized to escort the child to her mother.”
Elena's blood turned cold.
Mrs. Harper whispered, “They're trying the back gate.”
Elena looked at Anthony.
He was already speaking to the dispatcher.
She grabbed his arm.
“Tell them two men are at my daughter's house.”
Anthony relayed the address.
Elena heard another crash through Mrs. Harper's phone.
Glass.
Then footsteps.
“Mrs. Harper?”
No answer.
“Mrs. Harper!”
A woman's scream.
Then the line went silent.
Elena made a sound she didn't recognize.
She tried calling back.
Nothing.
She tried again.
Voicemail.
Anthony caught her shoulders.
“Look at me.”
“They have my daughter.”
“We don't know that.”
“They have her!”
“Officers are responding. We need to stay here and give them everything.”
Elena pulled away.
“You don't understand.”
Anthony's face was tense.
“I understand she's eight years old. And I understand running into an unknown armed situation could make this worse.”
Elena began crying.
Not quietly.
Not gracefully.
The kind of crying that came from a place deeper than fear.
She had survived her husband's abandonment.
Her father's death.
Three years of hospital corridors and bills she couldn't pay.
She had endured every exhausting shift by telling herself that Sophie would someday be healthy enough to run across a playground without stopping.
But she couldn't survive losing her.
Not because she had tried to save a stranger.
Not because a criminal organization had decided her daughter's life was useful leverage.
Her knees buckled.
Anthony caught her before she hit the floor.
Seventeen minutes later, police reached Mrs. Harper's house.
Two patrol vehicles arrived first, followed by an ambulance.
Officers found the rear kitchen window shattered.
Furniture had been overturned.
Mrs. Harper lay on the floor with a head injury.
She was conscious, frightened, and bleeding.
But Sophie was gone.
Elena received the news while sitting beneath the fluorescent lights of the gas station.
A detective named Rachel Bennett approached her carefully.
“Mrs. Brooks?”
Elena stood.
“Where is she?”
Bennett's silence answered before her words did.
“We're searching for your daughter.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“Mrs. Brooks—”
“No, you need to find her. She has a heart condition. Her medication is in the kitchen cabinet. She can't be frightened like this. She—”
Her voice broke.
Bennett gently guided her into a chair.
“Tell me everything about the men who threatened you.”
Elena showed her the messages.
The photograph.
The warning.
Then she described Victor Salerno and the altered medications.
Bennett listened without interruption.
When Elena finished, the detective's expression was grim.
“I need you to understand something. This may be more complicated than a kidnapping for money.”
Elena stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“The people who took Sophie may believe you have information they need.”
“I don't have anything!”
Bennett looked at the phone in Elena's hand.
“Did you photograph anything else at the clinic?”
Elena remembered the shipment sheets.
The authorization codes.
The handwritten note.
She had shown them to Marco.
But she had also taken another picture.
One she hadn't recognized as important.
On the bottom of the third shipment form was a small handwritten number.
B-17.
And beside it, a symbol resembling a broken circle.
She opened the photograph.
The detective leaned closer.
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“No.”
Bennett photographed the screen with Elena's permission.
“We'll check.”
Elena looked toward the road.
“What happens now?”
“We keep searching.”
“And my daughter?”
Bennett spoke carefully.
“We're going to do everything we can to bring her home.”
Elena heard the professional caution in those words.
She hated it.
Because what she needed was a promise.
At eleven forty-three that night, Marco Duca arrived at Lakeshore Medical Center under police escort.
His doctors had insisted on immediate cardiac monitoring.
He had refused until Elena's safety was confirmed.
Now, with Sophie missing, he knew that refusing medical care would only leave him less able to help.
The emergency department was bright, sterile, and crowded with people who had no idea why armed officers stood near one of the examination rooms.
Marco sat on the edge of a hospital bed while a nurse attached monitoring leads to his chest.
Dr. Hale reviewed the latest laboratory findings.
“The medication exposure is real,” Hale said. “We're treating the immediate effects and correcting the medication regimen. The exact source still needs confirmation.”
Marco looked out the window.
“Is it reversible?”
“In many cases, yes, with prompt treatment and careful monitoring. But I can't promise a timeline.”
Marco nodded.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message from his attorney.
Sophie Brooks confirmed missing. Police investigating suspected abduction.
Marco closed his eyes.
He could picture the child without ever having met her.
Purple sneakers.
An eight-year-old girl who wanted to become the fastest kid in Illinois.
Her mother had told him about her surgery.
And now that mother had lost the one person she was fighting to save.
Marco opened his eyes.
“Get me Detective Bennett.”
His attorney connected the call.
“Mr. Duca,” Bennett said, “I understand you've been informed.”
“Yes.”
“I also understand Mr. Salerno has disappeared.”
“He has.”
“We'll need full access to relevant security recordings, records, and staff witnesses.”
“You'll have it.”
“And I need to know whether your organization is planning any independent action.”
Marco looked at the monitor beside his bed.
Its steady rhythm reminded him how little control he really possessed.
“My people will preserve evidence and cooperate with your investigation,” he said. “I don't want anyone interfering with your officers.”
Bennett sounded almost surprised.
“Good.”
Marco hesitated.
“Detective, Elena Brooks has nothing to do with my family's business. Neither does her daughter.”
“Then help us prove it.”
The call ended.
Marco sat silently for several minutes.
Then he reached for the battered leather notebook he had carried since his father's death.
On the first page was a sentence Anthony Duca had written years earlier.
When a man says he's loyal, look at what he protects when nobody is watching.
Marco had always assumed the lesson was about money.
Now he wondered whether his father had meant something else.
At twelve twenty-six, Elena arrived at the police station.
She had refused to go to a hotel.
Refused to rest.
Refused the water placed beside her.
All she wanted was news.
Detective Bennett returned carrying a thin folder.
“We have an update.”
Elena stood so quickly that the chair scraped the floor.
“Did you find her?”
“Not yet. But Mrs. Harper regained consciousness.”
Elena pressed a hand against her mouth.
“What did she say?”
“She heard one of the men use a name.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
Bennett opened the folder.
“She said one man told the other, ‘Call the doctor. Tell him we have the girl.’”
Elena's heart pounded.
“The doctor?”
“Yes.”
Elena thought of Dr. Hale.
Of Samuel Whitcomb.
Of every medical professional who had handled Sophie's records.
Then something occurred to her.
“How did they know which medication Sophie needed?”
Bennett looked up.
“What?”
“The men told Mrs. Harper they were from the hospital. They knew Sophie had an appointment. They knew my daughter was sick.”
“Someone could have researched that.”
“No,” Elena whispered. “Her surgical scheduling information isn't public.”
Bennett watched her carefully.
Elena looked down at the folder.
“There are two medical systems involved. Harbor Ridge handles private deliveries. Lakeshore Children's Center handles Sophie.”
“Are their records connected?”
“Not normally.”
“Then who had access to both?”
Elena thought for several seconds.
Then her face drained.
Harbor Ridge had recently introduced a shared emergency-care coordination service.
One of its investors had negotiated access to certain consent-based referral services.
The service had been presented as a way to help patients move between private clinics and major hospitals.
Elena remembered sitting through the training session.
She remembered the smiling executive on the screen.
And she remembered the name printed beneath his photograph.
Dr. Samuel Whitcomb.
Elena gripped Bennett's arm.
“I think I know who the doctor is.”
Before she could explain, her phone lit up.
An incoming video call.
Unknown number.
Detective Bennett motioned for her not to answer until an officer could document it.
Then she nodded.
Elena accepted.
The image shook.
A dim room.
Concrete walls.
A single lamp.
And beneath the lamp sat Sophie.
Her purple sneakers were missing.
A blanket covered her knees.
She looked terrified.
“Mom?”
Elena nearly dropped the phone.
“Sophie!”
The little girl began crying.
“Mommy, I want to go home.”
Elena pressed a hand against her mouth.
“Baby, listen to me. I'm right here. I'm going to find you.”
A man stepped into the frame.
Only his torso was visible.
White shirt.
Dark tie.
A gold watch.
He placed one hand on Sophie's shoulder.
The child flinched.
“Mrs. Brooks,” the man said pleasantly, “you've caused an extraordinary amount of trouble.”
Elena recognized the voice.
She had heard it at Harbor Ridge during staff meetings.
She had heard it congratulating employees for their dedication to patient safety.
And she had heard it that morning, speaking quietly behind the infirmary door.
Dr. Samuel Whitcomb.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
The man moved closer to the camera.
“I want what Anthony Duca hid before he died.”
Elena stared.
“I don't know what that is.”
“Then ask his son.”
The screen shifted.
Sophie began coughing.
The sound was shallow and frightening.
Elena's heart stopped.
“Don't hurt her!”
Whitcomb's voice remained calm.
“You have until midnight tomorrow, Mrs. Brooks.”
“To do what?”
“To bring me Anthony Duca's original medical file.”
Elena looked helplessly at Detective Bennett.
Whitcomb leaned toward the camera.
“And tell Marco something for me.”
His expression darkened.
May you like
“His father wasn't the first man we buried to protect that file.”
The screen went black.
