Chapter 1 - The Baby Everyone Thought Was Dead
Chalice Imhof jerked awake and crushed the sleeping baby against her chest.
“Don’t touch him!”
Gabriel Holmes stepped toward the cot and saw a silver St. Jude medal trapped inside the infant’s fist.
Three letters were scratched into its back.
A. H. D.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
The baby had never been the target.
Chalice heard the armed guard behind Gabriel shift his weight.
It was a tiny sound.
Leather against stone.
Metal brushing fabric.
But after ninety-one days of running, Chalice had learned that danger rarely announced itself with gunfire. Usually, it began with something small.
A footstep outside an apartment.
A car parked too long across the street.
A stranger asking the wrong question at a pharmacy.
She tightened her arms around Douglas.
The baby slept through it.
That was almost funny.
Three adults stood in a room full of guns and secrets, and the smallest person there was the only one who seemed peaceful.
Gabriel remained beside the cot.
His gaze had not left the medal.
“That belonged to Antonio.”
Chalice swallowed.
“I know.”
Gabriel looked at her.
His face was harder than it had been seconds earlier.
“My brother wore that medal for twenty years.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Chalice said nothing.
The two guards behind him were watching her.
One was broad-shouldered, with a flattened nose and a scar beneath his chin.
The other was younger.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
No expression.
Gabriel noticed where Chalice was looking.
Without turning, he said, “Out.”
Neither guard moved.
Gabriel’s voice stayed quiet.
“Now.”
The younger man opened the steel door.
The larger guard hesitated.
Only half a second.
Chalice saw it.
So did Gabriel.
Then both men left.
The door closed.
Gabriel turned back.
“Talk.”
Chalice almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because powerful men always seemed to believe one word could unlock another human being.
Talk.
Trust me.
Come with me.
You’re safe.
She had heard every version.
“You kidnapped me.”
“I didn’t order it.”
“Your men kicked down my door.”
“My men were told you were holding property belonging to my family.”
Chalice stared at him.
“Property?”
His eyes moved to Douglas.
Something uncomfortable crossed his face.
“I chose the wrong word.”
“Yes.”
“I’m aware.”
“That’s impressive.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Douglas moved.
Both adults froze.
The infant made a soft sound and pushed his cheek deeper into the pink blanket.
Gabriel’s entire expression changed.
The transformation lasted only a moment, but Chalice saw it.
The feared Gabriel Holmes vanished.
In his place stood a younger brother staring at the last living piece of someone he had loved.
Gabriel slowly crouched again.
“How long?”
“Ninety-one days.”
“You’ve had him for ninety-one days?”
“I’ve protected him for ninety-one days.”
“From whom?”
Chalice met his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“My brother was murdered. His wife was murdered. I was told their son died hours later.”
“He didn’t.”
“I can see that.”
“No. You don’t understand.”
Chalice adjusted Douglas carefully.
“He was supposed to.”
Gabriel became completely still.
“What does that mean?”
Chalice remembered fluorescent hospital lights.
Blood.
Sirens.
A woman dying beneath her hands.
Isabella Holmes had arrived barely conscious.
Three gunshot wounds.
Massive blood loss.
The trauma team had worked on her while another team fought to stabilize her premature infant.
Antonio had been declared dead before arriving.
Isabella lasted twenty-seven minutes.
Long enough to understand what had happened.
Long enough to be terrified.
Long enough to grab Chalice’s wrist.
“She told me someone would come for Douglas.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t give me a name.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
“What exactly did she say?”
Chalice hesitated.
Gabriel noticed.
“Exactly.”
Chalice looked toward the steel door.
Then back at him.
“She said, ‘They’ll finish what they started.’”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened.
“That could mean whoever shot them.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“At first?”
Chalice nodded.
“Then Isabella asked me whether the hospital had called the family.”
Gabriel frowned.
“I was in New York.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because she knew too.”
Chalice could still hear Isabella struggling to breathe.
Gabriel is away.
Don’t call the house.
Don’t trust—
Then the monitor had screamed.
“Who did she tell you not to trust?”
“She never finished.”
Gabriel stood and paced once across the room.
“That doesn’t explain why you took Douglas.”
“I didn’t take him.”
“Then explain.”
Chalice closed her eyes.
After Isabella died, Douglas had been moved to a secure neonatal unit under an alias.
Only six people supposedly knew.
Chalice had returned to the emergency department.
At 4:17 that morning, she went upstairs because she had left her identification badge near the trauma room.
That mistake saved Douglas’s life.
She saw a man in hospital scrubs enter the restricted nursery.
Wrong shoes.
That was what bothered her.
Expensive black leather shoes beneath disposable blue scrubs.
He carried a syringe.
Chalice followed him.
“He wasn’t hospital staff,” she said.
“What happened?”
“I confronted him.”
“And?”
“He said Douglas had gone into respiratory distress.”
Gabriel waited.
“I asked what medication was in the syringe.”
The memory tightened her throat.
“He couldn’t answer.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“I hit the emergency alarm.”
“What happened to him?”
“He ran.”
“And security?”
“Never found him.”
Gabriel swore softly.
“That still doesn’t explain ninety-one days.”
“No.”
Chalice looked down at Douglas.
“Because the next morning, someone changed his chart.”
Gabriel stared.
“To what?”
“Deceased.”
Silence.
“The system listed Douglas Antonio Holmes as dead at 6:12 a.m.”
“But he was alive.”
“He was asleep in front of me.”
Gabriel’s breathing changed.
“Who changed it?”
“I checked the access record.”
“And?”
Chalice hesitated.
That information had nearly gotten her killed twice.
Gabriel crouched directly in front of her.
“Chalice.”
It was the first time he had used her first name.
“Who?”
“The login belonged to Dr. Nathan Cole.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Who is that?”
“He was the attending physician who treated Isabella.”
Gabriel processed it.
“Then Cole was involved.”
“That’s what I believed.”
“Believed?”
“Dr. Cole had been dead for three hours when someone used his credentials.”
Gabriel slowly straightened.
The room seemed colder.
Chalice continued.
“Someone had access to the hospital. Medical credentials. Security procedures. Your family’s movements. They knew Isabella survived long enough to give birth. They knew Douglas was alive.”
“And they knew I was out of Boston.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel turned toward the door.
Chalice caught his sleeve.
He looked down at her hand.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out who knew.”
“That’s exactly what you can’t do.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because whoever did this wanted you to start asking questions.”
Gabriel looked at her for several seconds.
Then he understood.
“The baby was bait.”
“Maybe.”
“For me.”
“Maybe.”
His expression became dangerous.
“You keep saying maybe.”
“Because certainty gets people killed.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
Respect, perhaps.
Or irritation.
With Gabriel Holmes, Chalice suspected the difference was small.
He looked at Douglas again.
“Why you?”
“What?”
“Why did Isabella trust you?”
“I don’t know.”
“People like Isabella didn’t trust strangers.”
“She was dying.”
“That makes people more careful, not less.”
Chalice remembered something.
Something she had tried not to remember.
Isabella staring at her name badge.
Imhof.
Her eyes widening.
Then her hand closing around Chalice’s wrist.
Not random.
Recognition.
Chalice’s stomach tightened.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
Before Chalice could answer, someone knocked.
Three times.
Pause.
Twice.
Gabriel opened the door only a few inches.
The younger guard stood outside.
“We found something in her apartment.”
“What?”
“A bag hidden beneath the floorboards.”
Chalice went cold.
She had never hidden anything beneath the floorboards.
Gabriel looked at her.
“You know about this?”
“No.”
The guard held up a sealed plastic evidence pouch.
Inside was a photograph.
Gabriel took it.
His face changed.
Chalice could see only the back.
There was handwriting on it.
Gabriel turned the photograph around.
It showed Isabella Holmes standing beside another woman outside Mass General.
The photograph was six years old.
The woman beside Isabella was Chalice’s mother.
On the bottom, written in Isabella’s handwriting, were four words.
FIND CHALICE IF I DIE.
Chalice stared at it.
“My mother never knew Isabella.”
Gabriel turned the photograph over.
Something else was written on the back.
A date.
A room number.
And one name.
Gabriel read it once.
May you like
Then his gaze slowly moved toward the younger guard standing in the doorway.
Because the name on the photograph was his.
