Chapter 4 - The Man I Buried
I wanted to go immediately.
Sloan refused.
“You’re not walking into a hospital basement because an anonymous text tells you to.”
“If Daniel is alive—”
“If Daniel is alive, then he has been alive for three years.”
The sentence hurt.
I turned on him.
“You think I don’t understand that?”
“I think whoever sent the photograph understands exactly how to control you.”
“So I should ignore it?”
“No. We go prepared.”
He called Bishop.
Cora was awake.
Stable.
Speaking in short phrases.
Sloan told him to stay with her and put two additional men outside the ICU.
Then he called Marco.
“Find every entrance to the archive basement.”
Marco was already typing.
“Main elevator, staff stairwell, loading corridor.”
“Cameras?”
“Some.”
“Working?”
A pause.
“Not all.”
“Of course.”
At 3:04 a.m., we returned to St. Catherine’s through the employee garage.
Sloan had changed.
Not clothes.
Something more subtle.
At dinner, he had filled space.
Now he conserved movement.
Checked corners.
Watched reflections.
The businessman was gone.
The man people whispered about had taken his place.
I should have been frightened.
Instead I was grateful he was there.
That realization bothered me.
Marco stayed upstairs with building schematics.
Sloan and I took the service stairwell.
“You don’t need to do this,” I whispered.
“My sister’s name is on the record.”
“Daniel is my problem.”
“Not anymore.”
The basement smelled exactly as I remembered.
Cold concrete.
Disinfectant.
Old paper.
Hospitals always hid their history downstairs.
Room numbers appeared on small metal plaques.
Then 417.
The door stood partly open.
My pulse hammered.
Sloan touched my shoulder.
“Behind me.”
“I know him.”
“If it’s him.”
He pushed the door.
Dark.
Rows of file shelves.
One desk lamp burned at the far end.
A man sat beneath it.
Back turned.
My knees almost gave out before he moved.
“Del.”
That voice.
Three years vanished.
“Daniel?”
He stood slowly.
Older.
Thinner.
Beard.
A scar along his temple.
Alive.
I could not move.
He stepped toward me.
I stepped backward.
Pain crossed his face.
“I know.”
“You’re dead.”
“No.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“You let me.”
His eyes closed.
“I know.”
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the archive room.
Sloan did not interfere.
Daniel touched his cheek.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserved worse.”
“Yes.”
“Three years.”
“I couldn’t contact you.”
“You just did.”
“Because Cora collapsed.”
I stared at him.
“You knew her.”
“Yes.”
“Room 417?”
He nodded.
I wanted to hit him again.
Instead I said, “Start talking.”
Daniel looked at Sloan.
“You’re her brother.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to want to kill me.”
“Probably.”
“Sloan.”
He glanced at me.
“What? He asked.”
Daniel almost laughed.
Then he sat.
“Three years ago, Cora was brought here after collapsing at a private event.”
“Why wasn’t I told?” Sloan asked.
“Your father had just died. You were overseas. Vale handled it.”
“What happened?”
Daniel looked at me.
“She wasn’t overdosing. Someone had been giving her medication that increased clotting risk.”
“What medication?”
“A compounded migraine drug.”
I frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It wasn’t actually what the label claimed.”
Sloan’s voice dropped.
“What was it?”
Daniel pulled a folder from beneath the desk.
“High-dose hormonal medication combined with another agent.”
“Why?”
“To create intermittent neurological symptoms that could be dismissed as migraines.”
“For what purpose?”
Daniel hesitated.
“That’s where it gets worse.”
“Try me.”
“Cora had inherited voting control in a trust created by your father.”
Sloan stared.
“She was sixteen.”
“Control activated at nineteen.”
I looked between them.
“She turned nineteen recently?”
“Two months ago,” Sloan said.
Daniel nodded.
“Then whoever started this three years ago knew what they were doing.”
Sloan’s face emptied of emotion.
That was more frightening than anger.
“Kill her slowly enough that nobody notices.”
“Or make her medically incompetent,” Daniel said.
Silence.
I opened the folder.
Medication orders.
Lab results.
Copies of Cora’s hidden admission.
And Daniel’s notes.
“You discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
“The phone call.”
He nodded.
“I told you I found mismatched inventory.”
“What happened after?”
“Vale came to the pharmacy.”
“You confronted him?”
“I asked why medications were being removed under Cora’s identity but administered through a confidential chart.”
“And?”
“He told me it was a security protocol.”
“You believed him?”
“For ten minutes.”
Daniel rubbed his hands.
“Then I found another log. Same medications. Different patient.”
“Who?”
He looked at Sloan.
“Your mother.”
Sloan froze.
“My mother died seven years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then explain.”
“The prescription pattern started with her.”
Sloan took the folder.
His eyes moved across the pages.
“My mother had migraines.”
“According to Vale.”
“She had a stroke.”
“According to Vale.”
The room seemed colder.
I remembered newspaper photographs.
Celeste Marquetti.
Elegant.
Dead at forty-six after what the city called a sudden cerebral hemorrhage.
Sloan looked up.
“You’re saying Vale killed my mother.”
“I’m saying someone used the same medication pattern before her death.”
“Someone?”
Daniel’s hesitation made Sloan move closer.
“Stop protecting names.”
“I don’t know who authorized it.”
“What does V mean in your note?”
“Not Vale.”
My pulse jumped.
“What?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I thought it was Vale originally. It wasn’t.”
“Who?”
“Victor.”
Sloan stopped breathing for a moment.
“Victor who?”
Daniel looked almost sorry.
“Victor Marquetti.”
I knew the name only because Sloan had mentioned his father.
“Your uncle?” I asked.
Sloan stared at Daniel.
“My father’s brother died ten years ago.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
Sloan’s hand closed around the folder.
“You’d better be very certain.”
“I saw him.”
“When?”
“The night I disappeared.”
My anger cut through the shock.
“You still haven’t explained that.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Vale knew I copied the records. Somebody followed me when I left.”
“The crash?”
“I was forced off the road.”
My throat tightened.
“I got out before the car burned.”
“And then?”
“A man found me.”
“Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
“He wanted the copies.”
“Did you give them to him?”
“Some.”
Sloan’s voice was quiet.
“And then?”
“I escaped.”
I laughed once.
Harshly.
“You escaped from a supposedly dead Marquetti and decided the safest choice was letting your fiancée think you burned alive?”
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“I thought they were watching you.”
“They were.”
“I know that now.”
“You destroyed me.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He looked down.
“I stayed away because anyone connected to me became leverage. I sent evidence anonymously. It disappeared. I contacted a federal investigator. He died.”
Sloan frowned.
“Name.”
“Elliot Crane.”
Sloan’s expression changed.
“You knew him?”
“He worked customs.”
“He worked for my father.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“Then your father may have known.”
I looked at Sloan.
“Known what?”
He did not answer.
A sound came from the hallway.
Metal against concrete.
Sloan raised his weapon.
Daniel killed the desk lamp.
Darkness swallowed us.
Footsteps.
One person.
Slow.
Approaching.
Sloan moved beside the door.
I heard my own breathing.
The footsteps stopped.
A phone vibrated somewhere outside.
Then a voice.
“Daniel?”
Vale.
Daniel stiffened.
Sloan raised one finger.
Silence.
Vale pushed the door open.
Sloan grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.
Vale gasped.
His eyes found Daniel.
All the blood left his face.
“You.”
“Surprised?” Daniel said.
Vale looked at Sloan.
“This isn’t what you think.”
Sloan pressed the gun beneath his jaw.
“You don’t know what I think.”
“Sloan, listen.”
“My sister nearly died.”
“I saved her before.”
“You lied about treating her.”
“To protect her.”
“From whom?”
Vale stopped.
Sloan leaned closer.
“Victor?”
Vale’s eyes betrayed him.
Daniel whispered, “He knows.”
Sloan saw it too.
“My uncle is alive.”
Vale said nothing.
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t?”
“He’ll kill Cora.”
Sloan’s expression hardened.
“He already tried.”
“No.”
Vale’s voice cracked.
“You still don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
Vale looked toward me.
Then Daniel.
Then the open doorway.
His fear was real.
“Cora was never the target.”
Nobody spoke.
Vale swallowed.
“The medication wasn’t meant to kill her.”
“Then what?”
“To keep her from remembering.”
I stared at him.
“Remembering what?”
Vale looked at Sloan.
“The night your mother died.”
A shot exploded from the hallway.
Vale jerked.
Blood appeared across his shirt.
He collapsed before Sloan could catch him.
Daniel killed the light again.
Sloan dragged me behind a steel shelf.
Footsteps ran away.
Marco’s voice burst through Sloan’s earpiece.
“Movement heading toward the loading corridor.”
“Lock it.”
“I’m trying.”
Vale coughed on the floor.
I crawled toward him.
“Pressure.”
Daniel handed me cloth.
I pressed it against the wound.
Vale grabbed my wrist.
His eyes were losing focus.
“Don’t let them take Cora.”
“Who?”
He struggled for breath.
“Victor.”
“Where is he?”
Vale’s fingers tightened.
“Your dinner…”
“What about it?”
“He was there.”
My stomach dropped.
Sloan leaned down.
“Who?”
Vale turned his head toward him.
“The man who took the paper.”
The quiet gray-haired guest.
I remembered him.
I remembered Sloan introducing him.
Not Victor.
Another name.
Arthur Bell.
Sloan went pale.
Vale whispered one final sentence before losing consciousness.
“That wasn’t Arthur Bell.”
Sloan stood slowly.
His phone rang.
Bishop.
He answered.
“What?”
I watched the color drain from his face.
“Say that again.”
A pause.
May you like
Then Sloan looked at me.
“Cora’s gone.”
