Chapter 2 - Isabella’s Last Warning
Gabriel locked the room himself.
Chalice watched him slide the bolt into place.
“What did it say?”
He did not answer immediately.
She hated that.
“Gabriel.”
He turned.
“You said my name was on the photograph.”
“It was.”
“Why?”
“Because underneath it Isabella wrote, ‘He doesn’t know.’”
Chalice stared.
“Know what?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Gabriel placed the photograph on a table.
The date written on the back was seven years earlier.
The room number belonged to an old wing of Mass General.
Chalice recognized it.
“Records archive.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
“I worked there during nursing school.”
He pulled out his phone.
“No.”
Gabriel paused.
“You’re not calling anyone.”
“I need the archive accessed.”
“And whoever changed Douglas’s medical record had hospital access.”
Gabriel lowered the phone.
She was right.
Again.
He appeared to dislike that.
“What do you suggest?”
“We go ourselves.”
“With Douglas?”
“No.”
Gabriel’s expression immediately closed.
Chalice understood.
“You don’t trust anyone.”
“Neither do you.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m not surrounded by armed criminals.”
His eyebrow rose.
“Point taken.”
Douglas stirred.
His eyes opened.
For several seconds he stared at Chalice.
Then Gabriel.
His lower lip trembled.
Gabriel looked genuinely alarmed.
Chalice nearly smiled.
“He’s going to cry.”
“What do I do?”
The question was so unexpected she actually laughed.
Gabriel Holmes looked offended.
“You hold him.”
“No.”
“You asked.”
“I thought there was another option.”
Douglas began crying.
Chalice carefully shifted him.
“Support his head.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Your nephew disagrees.”
She placed Douglas into his arms.
The most feared man in Boston froze.
Douglas stopped crying.
Gabriel looked down.
Something broke quietly inside his face.
“My brother never got to do this.”
Chalice’s anger softened.
“No.”
Gabriel touched one finger to Douglas’s tiny hand.
“He would’ve been terrible at it.”
“Probably.”
“He panicked around children.”
“So do you.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Don’t repeat that.”
For one strange moment, the underground room did not feel like a prison.
Then Douglas grabbed Gabriel’s finger.
Gabriel stopped smiling.
Because the silver medal shifted.
Something tiny fell from behind it.
A folded strip of waterproof paper.
Chalice stared.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Gabriel opened it.
Numbers.
Coordinates.
And two words.
SAINT AGNES.
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“I know that place.”
“What is it?”
“A cemetery.”
Two hours later, they stood beneath the abandoned chapel at Saint Agnes Cemetery.
Gabriel had brought only one man.
The older guard, Luca.
Chalice noticed the younger guard had been left behind.
She wondered whether Gabriel had noticed his hesitation earlier too.
Behind Antonio Holmes’s family crypt they found a metal box.
Inside was a flash drive.
A key.
And a handwritten note from Isabella.
Gabriel read aloud.
“If Douglas is alive, the woman holding him must be protected. She is not the thief. She is the reason he survived.”
Chalice’s knees weakened.
Gabriel continued.
“Do not take Douglas from her until you know who betrayed Antonio.”
His voice stopped.
There was another line.
“What?”
Gabriel folded the note.
“Nothing.”
“Gabriel.”
He looked at her.
She held out her hand.
He reluctantly gave her the paper.
The final sentence was short.
Gabriel, the betrayal began inside our family.
A noise came from above.
Luca drew his weapon.
Gabriel killed the flashlight.
Footsteps crossed the chapel floor.
One person.
Then another.
Then a voice.
“Gabriel?”
Chalice recognized it.
The younger guard from the underground room.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
He had never told him where they were going.
May you like
The crypt door began to open.
Someone had followed them.
