Chapter 4 - The Name on the Surgical Report
Adriano turned.
Luca raised his gun.
A woman stood in the doorway.
She was in her sixties, thin, frightened, wearing a building superintendent's robe.
“Don't shoot.”
Luca lowered the weapon.
Adriano didn't.
“Who are you?”
“Mrs. Alvarez. I manage the building.”
“Who uses this apartment?”
“Nobody.”
“Someone does.”
She looked at the photographs and crossed herself.
“I knew I should have called the police.”
Adriano lowered his weapon.
“When did you see someone?”
“Three nights ago.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man. Gray coat.”
Beatrice's watcher.
“Face?”
“No. But he had a limp.”
Adriano and Luca exchanged a look.
Carlo Vescari had been shot in the left thigh seven years earlier.
He walked with a slight limp in cold weather.
Adriano opened the envelope addressed to Beatrice.
Inside was a copy of Theo's original surgical intake from two years earlier.
One name had been circled.
Emergency contact: Mara Carson.
Impossible.
Mara had supposedly died before the document was created.
Luca read it.
“What the hell?”
Adriano turned the page.
A handwritten annotation appeared at the bottom.
Patient transferred under guardian authorization.
M. Carson.
“Someone used Mara's identity,” Luca said.
“Or Mara survived longer than Beatrice was told.”
They returned to the hospital before dawn.
Beatrice read the document.
“No.”
“Look at the signature.”
“It isn't hers.”
“You're sure?”
“I watched Mara sign birthday cards for twenty-eight years. That's not her handwriting.”
“Then someone impersonated her.”
“Why?”
Adriano didn't know.
Dr. Anand did.
Or at least she knew part of it.
When confronted, she closed her office door.
“I wasn't Theo's doctor then.”
“Who was?” Beatrice asked.
“Dr. Elias Mercer.”
Adriano recognized the name.
Mercer had once treated Carlo Vescari.
“Where is he?”
“He resigned.”
“When?”
Dr. Anand looked uncomfortable.
“Two days after Theo's first procedure.”
Beatrice leaned forward.
“What procedure?”
Silence.
“What procedure?”
Dr. Anand opened Theo's archived record.
“He had emergency surgery after the explosion.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She looked at Beatrice.
“I mean six months later.”
Beatrice stopped breathing.
“Nobody told me.”
“The records say guardian consent was obtained.”
“From whom?”
“Mara Carson.”
Beatrice's eyes filled with fury.
“My sister was dead.”
Dr. Anand went pale.
Adriano stepped closer.
“What did Mercer do?”
“He repositioned the fragment.”
“Why?”
“It says migration risk.”
“Did it help?”
Dr. Anand hesitated.
“No.”
Beatrice stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“He made it worse?”
“I can't determine that without reviewing the imaging.”
“Review it.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
Dr. Anand did.
Thirty minutes later, she returned with a radiologist.
The answer was worse than Beatrice expected.
The fragment had been moved.
Not accidentally.
The first surgery had placed it in a relatively stable position.
The second had moved it closer to critical nerve tissue.
Adriano's expression became deadly.
“Someone deliberately endangered him.”
Dr. Anand wouldn't say deliberately.
She didn't need to.
Beatrice walked into the hallway.
Adriano followed.
She leaned against the wall and covered her mouth.
“I left him alone.”
“You didn't.”
“I was working.”
“You trusted doctors.”
“I should have been here.”
“Beatrice.”
She looked at him.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Don't make me feel better.”
“I wasn't going to.”
That surprised her.
He continued.
“I was going to tell you that blaming yourself is easier than accepting someone else chose to hurt him.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“How do you know?”
“Experience.”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Theo's laughter drifted from his room.
Beatrice wiped her face.
“I need to go.”
Adriano caught her wrist gently.
She looked down.
He released it immediately.
“Someone manipulated his medical care once.”
“I know.”
“The surgery is tomorrow.”
She understood.
“You think they'll try again.”
“Yes.”
Adriano replaced every unauthorized person around Theo's operating team with hospital-approved staff whose identities could be independently verified.
Dr. Anand agreed to additional security.
Beatrice stayed beside Theo all night.
At 5:40 a.m., a nurse entered to prepare him.
She checked his wristband.
Theo was sleepy.
Beatrice kissed his forehead.
The nurse reached for the medication syringe.
Adriano, standing near the window, noticed something.
Her badge.
The photograph showed blonde hair.
The woman wearing it had brown hair.
“Stop.”
Everyone froze.
The nurse looked at him.
“What?”
“Put the syringe down.”
“Sir, this is preoperative—”
“Put it down.”
Beatrice stood.
The woman's hand moved toward her pocket.
Adriano crossed the room.
She dropped the syringe and ran.
Luca caught her in the hallway.
Hospital security arrived seconds later.
Dr. Anand examined the syringe.
Her face changed.
“This isn't the prescribed medication.”
“What is it?” Beatrice asked.
“I don't know yet.”
Theo began crying.
Beatrice held him.
Adriano stared at the fake nurse.
“Who sent you?”
She said nothing.
Police took her away.
The surgery was postponed twenty-four hours.
That evening, the hospital lab identified the syringe contents.
A sedative at a dosage dangerous for a child Theo's size.
Beatrice sat beside him until he slept.
Then her phone rang.
Blocked number.
She answered.
A man's voice spoke.
“You should have taken the warning.”
“Who is this?”
“You want Theo alive?”
Her blood turned cold.
“Stay away from him.”
“Then stop Sarti from looking for Carlo.”
The line disconnected.
Beatrice immediately called Adriano.
No answer.
She called Luca.
Nothing.
She left Theo under police protection and ran toward the elevators.
When the doors opened, Adriano stood inside.
Blood covered his white shirt.
Beatrice stared at him.
“What happened?”
He stepped out.
“Carlo contacted me.”
“Where?”
“He gave me a name.”
“Whose?”
Adriano looked toward Theo's room.
May you like
Before he could answer, the lights across the pediatric floor went out.
Then someone screamed from room 714.
