Chapter 2 - The Name Nobody Said Twice
The following morning, I learned two things.
First, my landlord had raised the rent again.
Second, the man whose car I had mistakenly entered was Adrian Vale.
My discovery began with a photograph.
I had barely finished pouring coffee into my travel mug when my coworker, Maya Bennett, appeared beside me and shoved her phone under my nose.
"Tell me you recognize this man."
I nearly spilled my coffee.
The photograph showed the same dark hair, sharp jaw, and emotionless eyes I remembered from the previous night.
"Why?"
Maya stared at me.
"Because this is Adrian Vale."
I shrugged.
"Should I know him?"
Her expression became one of genuine disbelief.
"Emma. He's not a celebrity. He's worse."
She lowered her voice.
According to Maya, Adrian Vale had inherited a criminal organization after his father died six years earlier. His name had surfaced in investigations involving illegal gambling, extortion, and a dozen unexplained disappearances.
Nobody had ever managed to prove enough to put him behind bars.
Three rival crime families had lost their leaders within eighteen months of challenging him. Some people insisted Adrian had ordered their deaths. Others claimed those men had simply vanished after Adrian obtained evidence against them.
His reputation had become so formidable that even people who hated him were careful about speaking his name.
"And you were in his car?" Maya whispered.
"Technically, I was in the wrong car."
"Emma!"
"I was tired!"
Maya grabbed my arm.
"Did he threaten you?"
"No."
"Touch you?"
"No."
"Ask you questions?"
"He asked whether I was a nurse."
Maya stared at me for several seconds.
Then she said something that made my coffee taste suddenly bitter.
"Adrian Vale has never been seen inside St. Catherine's. Not once. And yet last night, you climbed into his car outside our hospital."
I opened my mouth to answer.
The emergency department doors burst open.
Paramedics rushed in with a man on a stretcher. Blood soaked through his shirt. His breathing was shallow, and his face had turned the frightening gray color I'd learned to recognize far too quickly.
"Male, approximately thirty-five. Multiple gunshot wounds. Found behind a warehouse on the West Side."
We moved instantly.
I cut through his shirt while the doctor called for blood products. The patient's eyes fluttered open, and his fingers closed around my wrist with startling strength.
"Listen to me," he rasped.
"Save your strength."
"No." His gaze locked onto mine. "Adrian Vale."
My blood turned cold.
The patient tried to lift his head.
"Tell him... the ledger is inside the hospital."
His monitor began screaming.
"Sir, I need you to stay with me."
He dragged in a painful breath.
"Not the police. Not Mercer. Only him."
Then he went into cardiac arrest.
We worked for twenty-two minutes.
We failed.
When the room finally fell silent, I stood beside the bed and looked at the dead man's face.
Something was wrong.
His hospital identification bracelet carried a name that meant nothing to me: Thomas Bell.
But as I prepared the body, I noticed an old scar near his left thumb, shaped like a small crescent.
I'd seen that scar before.
Not on a patient.
On the man in the black sedan.
My hands went still.
The dead man's fingers opened slightly as I lifted his wrist.
A tiny folded piece of paper slipped from beneath his palm.
I caught it before it reached the floor.
Three words had been written on it in dark ink.
ASK VALE ABOUT GRACE.
Before I could read them again, Dr. Victor Mercer entered the room.
Our hospital's chief of surgery was a respected physician, a generous donor, and the kind of man who smiled for every charity photograph.
He looked at the dead patient.
Then he looked at the paper in my hand.
His smile disappeared.
"Give me that, Emma."
I instinctively closed my fingers around it.
"Why?"
His voice hardened.
"Because I am telling you to."
May you like
For the first time in the three years I'd worked at St. Catherine's, I saw something in Dr. Mercer's eyes that didn't belong in a hospital.
Fear.
