Chapter 2 - The Dead Man’s Medallion
Tessa forgot the ambulance.
Forgot the hotel.
Forgot the men standing outside.
“My father.”
Rafe became absolutely still.
Tessa knew that kind of stillness.
She had seen soldiers wear it before receiving bad news.
Rafe looked toward the closed ambulance doors.
Then back at her.
“Your father was Elias Ward?”
“Yes.”
“He was an Army surgeon?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago did he die?”
“Fourteen years.”
Rafe's jaw tightened.
Tessa hated the expression immediately.
Not because it was threatening.
Because it looked like recognition.
“You knew him.”
Rafe didn't answer.
“Rafe.”
His gaze returned to hers.
That single use of his first name seemed to register.
“My father had that medallion,” Tessa said. “He wore it every deployment.”
Rafe opened his hand.
The silver piece rested against his palm.
Old.
Scratched.
Unmistakable.
Tessa reached for it.
Rafe closed his fingers.
“No.”
The word was quiet.
Tessa stared.
“That belonged to my father.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean it belonged to the man who gave it to me.”
Tessa felt something cold move through her chest.
“My father died overseas.”
Rafe's expression darkened.
“That’s what you were told.”
Outside the ambulance, Malcolm turned sharply toward them.
“Boss.”
Rafe ignored him.
Tessa leaned closer.
“What does that mean?”
Rafe looked at Malcolm.
“Close the doors.”
Malcolm hesitated.
Rafe repeated himself.
“Close them.”
The doors shut.
The noise outside became muted.
Suddenly there were only two people in the ambulance.
The nurse.
The man everyone feared.
And a secret fourteen years old.
Rafe stared at the medallion.
“I was twenty-six when I met Elias.”
Tessa couldn't imagine her father knowing this man.
“He treated you?”
“He saved me.”
“Where?”
Rafe looked at her.
“Bosnia.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“My father was assigned farther south.”
“Officially.”
Tessa felt her stomach tighten.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Rafe rested his head briefly against the metal wall.
“Your father wasn't only working military hospitals.”
Tessa shook her head.
“No.”
“He was helping civilians who couldn't reach sanctioned medical sites.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He helped everyone.”
The words came differently from Rafe.
Softer.
Almost reverent.
“He didn't ask who people worked for. Didn't ask their religion. Didn't care which side controlled which road.”
Tessa stared at him.
Rafe continued.
“One night somebody brought me to him.”
“Somebody?”
“A man who owed my family money.”
Tessa frowned.
“You were in organized crime at twenty-six?”
Rafe gave her a look.
“You really want that answer?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Despite herself, she nearly laughed.
It disappeared immediately.
“What happened?”
“I was barely conscious. Elias operated.”
Tessa looked down.
Her father’s hands.
She remembered them.
Steady hands.
Gentle hands.
Hands that had taught her how to tie fishing knots and bandage scraped knees.
“He stayed with me for two days,” Rafe said.
Tessa swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because I had nobody else.”
That answer surprised her.
“You had family.”
“Not anyone I trusted.”
The quiet between them changed.
“Before I left, he gave me this.”
Rafe held up the medallion.
“He said I looked like a man who needed something to remind him he could still choose what kind of person he became.”
Tessa smiled painfully.
“That sounds exactly like him.”
Then another question came.
“If he gave it to you fourteen years ago…”
Rafe's eyes hardened.
Tessa finished quietly.
“…then you saw him near the time he supposedly died.”
“Yes.”
“How near?”
Rafe did not answer.
“Rafe.”
“Three weeks after.”
The entire ambulance seemed to tilt.
Tessa stared at him.
“No.”
“I saw your father three weeks after the Army reported Elias Ward dead.”
Tessa stood so quickly she struck her shoulder against a cabinet.
“No.”
“Tessa.”
“No.”
Her father’s funeral came back in fragments.
Closed casket.
Flag.
Her mother's silent shaking.
The officer telling them remains had been unrecoverable.
She had been twenty.
She had spent fourteen years accepting an absence because there had been nothing else to accept.
“You're lying.”
“I don't lie about dead fathers.”
The sentence was harsh.
But his eyes weren't.
Tessa put both hands against the counter.
“Where was he?”
“A private clinic outside Dubrovnik.”
“What happened after that?”
“I left.”
“And him?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I knew what happened to Elias Ward, I would tell you.”
Tessa looked at him.
She believed him.
That frightened her more.
Then someone struck twice on the ambulance door.
Malcolm's voice.
“Rafe.”
The tone had changed.
Rafe opened the door.
Malcolm stood outside holding a phone.
“We found something on the hotel security system.”
“What?”
“The camera covering the east service entrance was disabled seven minutes before the disturbance.”
Rafe's face became unreadable.
“Inside job?”
“Looks that way.”
Tessa barely heard them.
Then Malcolm added:
“And somebody accessed the hotel network yesterday using credentials belonging to a dead physician.”
Rafe's eyes narrowed.
“What physician?”
Malcolm looked briefly at Tessa.
That was enough.
Her skin went cold.
“Say it,” she whispered.
Malcolm hesitated.
“Dr. Elias Ward.”
Tessa stared at him.
Rafe stood despite everything she had said.
This time she did not stop him.
Because suddenly his injury was no longer the most dangerous thing inside the Grand Hawthorne Hotel.
Someone had used the identity of Tessa’s dead father less than twenty-four hours earlier.
And whoever they were—
May you like
they knew Rafe Calder would be there.
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