Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Hallway
Sadi couldn’t move.
Gabriel could.
“Bring her in.”
Two guards rushed into the hallway.
They returned alone.
Luca checked the stairwell.
Nothing.
The woman had disappeared.
But she had left something behind.
An old employee badge.
CALDER INDUSTRIAL TEXTILES.
The photograph showed a young woman with dark hair.
Sadi recognized her.
“Teresa Vale.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You know her?”
“My mother worked with her.”
“You’re certain?”
“I used to see her when I was a kid.”
Sadi picked up the badge.
On the back, someone had written a number.
17-4-9.
Below it:
R.M. WAS RIGHT.
Gabriel ordered the building locked down.
Marco was gone.
Dr. Mercer was detained.
And for the first time in three weeks, Gabriel allowed a physician outside his established medical team to examine him.
Dr. Helen Cho arrived from a hospital across town before midnight.
She took one look at the removed thread and refused to speculate.
“I need a laboratory.”
“You’ll have one,” Gabriel said.
“I also need every remaining suture removed.”
Mercer protested from across the room.
“That could kill him.”
Dr. Cho looked at the wound.
“Leaving them may already be doing that.”
Sadi watched Gabriel.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Do it.”
The procedure lasted ninety minutes.
Sadi waited outside.
She should have gone home.
Instead, she sat beneath a painting worth more than her apartment building and stared at Teresa’s badge.
17-4-9.
She remembered her mother keeping notebooks.
Numbers.
Fabric samples.
Supplier codes.
Rosa had never explained them.
After her death, Sadi had packed everything into boxes.
Most were still in a storage unit.
Gabriel emerged after two in the morning.
His shoulder was newly bandaged.
“You’re still here.”
“You have my phone.”
He almost smiled.
Luca returned it.
Then Dr. Cho stepped out.
“The damage is extensive, but there’s viable tissue beneath it.”
Gabriel’s face remained unreadable.
“Meaning?”
“If the contamination source was those sutures, removing them may stop the progression.”
May.
Nobody celebrated.
Dr. Cho continued.
“The thread contains an embedded filament. I’ve sent samples for analysis.”
Sadi showed her the badge.
“Does 17-4-9 mean anything medically?”
“No.”
Gabriel said, “Maybe it means something industrially.”
Sadi looked at him.
“My mother’s storage boxes.”
Thirty minutes later, Gabriel’s convoy stopped outside a storage facility in Queens.
Sadi stared at the black SUVs.
“This is ridiculous.”
“You may have evidence connected to an attempt on my life.”
“You could have sent someone.”
“I don’t trust someone.”
The statement landed differently than she expected.
Inside Unit 314, Sadi found her mother’s boxes beneath an old sewing machine.
The smell of cardboard and dust made her chest ache.
She opened the first box.
Pay stubs.
Fabric swatches.
Union notices.
The second contained notebooks.
Sadi found the code on page forty-seven.
17-4-9.
Beside it, Rosa had written:
BLACK BRAID / MEDICAL TESTING / REJECTED.
Below that:
Falcone contract?
Gabriel read over her shoulder.
“My family never owned a textile company.”
Sadi turned the page.
A newspaper clipping had been folded inside.
CALDER TEXTILES WINS DEFENSE CONTRACT.
There was a photograph.
Three men stood beside the factory owner.
One was Gabriel’s father.
Vittorio Falcone.
Gabriel went completely still.
“My father told me he never dealt with Calder.”
Sadi found another note.
V.F. KNOWS.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
His father had been dead for six years.
“Keep looking.”
Near the bottom of the box was a cassette tape.
Sadi found an old recorder.
The tape crackled.
Then Rosa Moreno’s voice filled the storage unit.
“If Sadi ever hears this, I’m sorry.”
Sadi stopped breathing.
Gabriel looked at her.
Rosa continued.
“They’re testing a coated fiber. It destroys living tissue slowly. Calder says the project was canceled, but shipments are still leaving at night.”
Static.
Then:
“Vittorio Falcone came to the factory today. He argued with Mr. Calder. He told him to destroy everything.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
The tape continued.
“But someone else was listening.”
A noise sounded in the recording.
Rosa whispered.
“If anything happens to me, find Teresa.”
The tape clicked off.
Sadi wiped tears from her face.
Gabriel said nothing for a long moment.
Then his phone rang.
Dr. Cho.
He answered.
“Yes?”
Her voice was loud enough for Sadi to hear.
“The preliminary analysis is back.”
Gabriel straightened.
“The fiber was deliberately impregnated with a cytotoxic compound. This wasn’t contamination.”
Sadi’s skin went cold.
Dr. Cho continued.
“Someone designed those sutures to cause progressive tissue death.”
Gabriel’s gaze met Sadi’s.
“So somebody poisoned me.”
“Yes.”
“Can you identify the manufacturer?”
“Not yet. But there’s something else.”
A pause.
“The thread wasn’t introduced during your original surgery.”
Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
“The knot pattern is different from the operative photographs. Your original sutures were replaced afterward.”
Sadi whispered, “By whom?”
Dr. Cho answered.
“According to the hospital access records, only one person entered Gabriel’s recovery room during the unmonitored seventeen-minute window.”
Gabriel’s phone vibrated.
A photograph arrived.
He opened it.
His face changed.
Sadi stepped closer.
The security image showed a person entering Gabriel’s hospital room carrying a medical bag.
The timestamp was three weeks earlier.
The face was unmistakable.
Sadi looked at Gabriel.
“That’s impossible.”
Gabriel said nothing.
May you like
Because the person in the photograph was Sadi’s mother.
Rosa Moreno.
