Chapter 3 - The Name Written in BloodThe police arrived at Mara's rowhouse shortly after one o'clock.
By then, Preston Shaw had stopped talking.
He refused to answer questions.
He refused to explain the syringe.
He refused to identify the stranger who had accompanied him.
The stranger claimed Preston had hired him as private security.
Mara gave a full statement and surrendered the surveillance footage from her front-door camera.
Gabriel remained nearby, despite Dante repeatedly reminding him that his wound required rest.
Mara noticed something strange.
The responding officers seemed more nervous about Gabriel than about the men who had invaded her house.
One officer whispered to another.
Gabriel heard.
He said nothing.
But Mara understood.
Power surrounded this man in ways she had never experienced.
It made her uncomfortable.
And it frightened her how much she had already begun to rely on it.
When the officers finally escorted Preston outside for questioning, Gabriel turned to Mara.
“You can't stay here.”
She folded her arms.
“That's my decision.”
“Someone broke into your house.”
“I noticed.”
“They were carrying an unidentified injectable drug.”
“I noticed that too.”
“They know where you live.”
“So do half the delivery drivers in Baltimore.”
Gabriel stared at her.
Mara sighed.
“I understand the danger. But I'm not moving into your mansion because you tell me to.”
“Then don't move into my mansion.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“I have a guesthouse. Separate entrance. Separate security. You can leave whenever you want.”
“Gabriel—”
“Your sister has a son.”
Mara froze.
“Don't bring Paige into this.”
“I'm not threatening her. I'm saying that if these people can't reach you, they may look for someone you love.”
Mara looked away.
She hated that he was right.
She hated even more that he knew exactly which fear would reach her.
“Paige doesn't know anything,” she whispered.
“That may not matter.”
Mara closed her eyes.
She thought about her nephew, Oliver.
Seven years old.
Missing his two front teeth.
Obsessed with dinosaurs.
Still convinced his aunt could cure any illness simply because she wore a white coat.
Mara could not allow him to become collateral damage.
“Fine,” she said.
Gabriel's shoulders relaxed.
“But I want conditions.”
“Name them.”
“No entering my rooms without permission.”
“Agreed.”
“No investigating my family.”
“Agreed.”
“No touching my finances.”
“Agreed.”
“And no trying to buy my affection.”
Something changed in his eyes.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“I wouldn't insult you that way twice.”
She held his gaze.
For the first time since meeting him, she believed him completely.
That evening, Mara moved into the estate's guesthouse.
It was larger than her entire rowhouse.
The bedroom overlooked a garden filled with white roses.
A small kitchen contained fresh groceries.
There were bookshelves, a fireplace, and a sitting room with windows facing the river.
Mara walked through the rooms in disbelief.
Then she found a handwritten note on the kitchen counter.
The guesthouse is yours while you need it. No obligations. No expectations.
G.
She read it twice.
Then she folded it carefully and placed it in her purse.
It was the first thing Gabriel had given her that she wanted to keep.
At 9:40 p.m., someone knocked.
Mara opened the door.
A woman stood outside carrying a covered tray.
She was about sixty, with silver hair pinned neatly at the back of her head and kind brown eyes that had seen more than they revealed.
“Dr. Ellison?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Rosa Bellini. I run the household.”
Mara smiled.
“It's nice to meet you.”
Rosa looked past her.
“Has anyone explained that Mr. Vescari thinks toast counts as a balanced dinner?”
Mara laughed.
“No.”
“Good. Then perhaps you'll have better luck than I have.”
She carried the tray into the kitchen.
Inside were soup, bread, roasted vegetables, and a small bowl of strawberries.
Mara stared.
“Is all this for me?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
Rosa watched her for a moment.
Then she said quietly, “He slept last night.”
Mara looked up.
“Gabriel?”
Rosa nodded.
“Dante told me.”
Mara set down her spoon.
“Has it really been that bad?”
Rosa's expression softened.
“Worse.”
She sat down.
“Gabriel was never a gentle man, Doctor. But he used to laugh. He used to come into the kitchen at midnight and steal pastries. He used to bring Luca home after baseball games, both of them arguing about who had cheated.”
Rosa smiled sadly.
“After Luca died, the house changed.”
“How?”
“Gabriel stopped eating at the table. He stopped playing music. He stopped sleeping.”
Mara looked toward the dark windows.
Rosa continued.
“Sometimes he sat outside Luca's room until morning. Sometimes I heard him talking to someone who wasn't there.”
Mara's heart tightened.
“He needs specialized trauma care,” she said. “One good night doesn't solve that.”
“I know.”
Rosa reached across the table.
“But one good night means something, doesn't it?”
Mara nodded.
“Yes. It does.”
Rosa stood.
At the doorway, she paused.
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“Please be careful with him.”
Mara expected a warning about Gabriel's temper.
Instead, Rosa said, “Everybody in this city is afraid of what that man can do. Almost nobody remembers what has been done to him.”
At 11:16 p.m., Mara received a message from an unknown number.
You want to know what happened to Evelyn Carter? Look in the medication transfer records from March 14.
Mara stared.
A second message appeared.
And don't trust the man who treated Gabriel's wound.
Her blood ran cold.
Dr. Leonard Price.
She immediately called Gabriel.
He answered on the first ring.
“Mara?”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“How long has Dr. Price been your physician?”
A pause.
“Almost five years.”
“Did he treat Luca?”
Silence.
Then Gabriel answered.
“Yes.”
Mara's stomach tightened.
“Was he present the night Luca died?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed.
“Gabriel, I just received a message.”
She read it aloud.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then his voice changed.
“Lock your door.”
“Gabriel—”
“Now.”
Mara heard movement on his end.
Footsteps.
A door opening.
“Dante,” Gabriel called. “Find Price.”
Dr. Leonard Price was not at home.
His phone was off.
His car was gone.
And when Dante sent security to the clinic where Price maintained an office, they found the front door unlocked.
The office had been emptied.
Not cleaned.
Emptied.
Files removed.
Hard drives missing.
Cabinets open.
Someone had left in a hurry.
Gabriel stood in his study, staring at the photographs Dante had sent.
Mara sat across from him.
“Maybe he was warned,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe he's frightened.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Price was the physician who pronounced Luca dead.”
Mara's expression softened.
“I'm sorry.”
Gabriel turned toward the window.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he opened a drawer.
Inside was a photograph.
Two young men stood beside a fishing boat.
The older one was Gabriel.
The younger had the same gray eyes, the same dark hair, and a grin that seemed incapable of hiding anything.
“Luca,” Gabriel said.
Mara took the photograph.
“He looks happy.”
“He usually was.”
“Were you close?”
Gabriel laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“He was my brother. My best friend. The only person in the world who could walk into my office and tell me I was being an idiot.”
Mara smiled faintly.
“I think I could manage that.”
Gabriel looked at her.
For one second, warmth returned to his face.
Then it disappeared.
“The night he died, Luca called me.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me he'd found something in our shipping records. Something he needed to show me.”
“What kind of something?”
“He wouldn't say over the phone.”
Gabriel swallowed.
“I told him to meet me at Warehouse Nineteen.”
Mara went still.
“The warehouse that exploded?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“When I arrived, there was a fire. Luca was trapped inside.”
Gabriel stared at the photograph.
“I got to him. I pulled him out. But he was badly burned, and he'd lost too much blood.”
Mara waited.
“He kept trying to tell me something.”
“What?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“I thought he was saying Victor.”
“Salerno?”
“Yes.”
“Could he have been saying something else?”
Gabriel looked at her sharply.
“Why?”
Mara considered her next words carefully.
“Because people experiencing severe injuries can have difficulty speaking clearly. And because you've spent fourteen months building your understanding of what happened around one final word.”
Gabriel stared.
“You think I misunderstood him?”
“I think we should look at the evidence before assuming we know.”
He stood abruptly.
“Victor ordered the explosion.”
“Maybe he did.”
“He had motive.”
“Then evidence should support it.”
Gabriel's eyes flashed.
“You don't know anything about my world.”
“No,” Mara said quietly. “But I know what grief can do to memory.”
He looked away.
Immediately, he regretted his tone.
“Mara—”
She stood.
“I should go.”
“Wait.”
She stopped.
Gabriel looked at her.
“My brother died because I told him where to meet me.”
His voice cracked.
“If I had chosen another warehouse, another road, another hour—”
Mara stepped closer.
“You didn't plant the bomb.”
He said nothing.
“You didn't choose for someone to hurt him.”
Gabriel's eyes shone.
“But I couldn't save him.”
Mara understood that sentence.
Every emergency physician knew the agony of replaying the moments before a patient died.
The question that never stopped.
What if I had done something differently?
She spoke gently.
“You loved your brother.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And you tried to save him.”
His breathing changed.
“You don't know that.”
“Your scars tell me you went into a burning building.”
Gabriel looked at the pale marks along his forearm.
He had never thought of them that way.
Mara touched his hand.
“That's not what a man who abandoned his brother does.”
For a moment, the room was completely silent.
Then Gabriel pulled her into his arms.
Not roughly.
Not possessively.
He simply held her.
Mara felt his heartbeat beneath her cheek.
Fast at first.
Then gradually slower.
She closed her eyes.
Neither spoke.
And for the first time in fourteen months, Gabriel allowed himself to cry.
The next morning, Dante arrived with news.
He looked exhausted.
“We found Price's car.”
Gabriel stood.
“Where?”
“Near the old ferry terminal.”
“Was he inside?”
Dante shook his head.
“No.”
Mara noticed the look on his face.
“What did you find?”
Dante placed a photograph on the desk.
It showed the open trunk of a black sedan.
Inside lay a bloodstained white medical coat.
And on the lining, written in red, were four words.
LUCA KNEW ABOUT WHITMORE.
Mara looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked at Mara.
Then they both understood.
The murdered brother.
The corrupt hospital.
The missing nurse.
And the stolen medications.
May you like
They were not separate mysteries.
They were parts of the same crime.
Related Stories
