Chapter 2 - The Nurse Who Didn’t Flinch
By the time we reached Massachusetts General, Rafe Calder had asked me three questions about the woman outside the hotel.
I answered exactly two of them.
“What did she look like?”
“Early forties. Dark hair. Black wool coat.”
“Height?”
“Maybe five-eight.”
“What was written on her badge?”
“I’m done.”
Rafe looked at me from the stretcher.
“You’re done?”
“With the interrogation.”
“This isn’t an interrogation.”
“It becomes one when the patient starts asking more questions than the nurse.”
He leaned back.
The ambulance swayed through an intersection.
“You saw her badge.”
“I saw something silver clipped to her coat.”
“Did you read the name?”
“No.”
That part was true.
Unfortunately, I had noticed something else.
The woman had carried a hotel keycard sleeve in one hand.
And just before she disappeared into the service corridor, she looked directly at me.
Not casually.
Intentionally.
I couldn’t explain why that bothered me.
Rafe watched my expression.
“You remembered something.”
“No.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You looked left.”
“What?”
“When you lie, you look slightly left.”
I stared at him.
“You’ve known me fifteen minutes.”
“Seventeen.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
The ambulance stopped.
The doors opened immediately.
A trauma team waited outside.
Rafe was transferred through the emergency entrance, and my role should have ended there.
It didn’t.
Malcolm caught up with me near the nurses’ station.
“Ms. Ward.”
“I’m working.”
“We need five minutes.”
“You need a detective.”
“We’ll speak to one.”
“Good.”
“Elena.”
I turned.
June stood behind him with a bandage over her eyebrow.
She looked smaller without Rafe beside her.
Not helpless.
Just younger.
“I think you should talk to us.”
“Why?”
“Because the woman you saw doesn’t work at the hotel.”
That stopped me.
Malcolm held up his phone.
A security-camera image showed the same woman entering a staff elevator.
“You found her?”
“We found footage.”
“Who is she?”
“We don’t know.”
“How do you know she doesn’t work there?”
“Because the Grand Hawthorne has no employee matching her description.”
I looked at the image again.
“She was wearing an employee badge.”
“A counterfeit one.”
My stomach tightened.
June folded her arms.
“She left forty-two seconds before the first shots.”
I glanced toward the trauma bay.
“Have you told police?”
“Rafe is handling that.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Malcolm answered.
“Yes.”
Good.
I wanted legal authorities involved.
I had no interest in becoming part of whatever shadow system Rafe Calder lived inside.
“Then they can take my statement.”
“They will.”
Malcolm’s expression stayed unreadable.
“But there’s another problem.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
He showed me a second photograph.
This one was grainy.
The hotel lobby.
The mystery woman stood near a flower arrangement.
Beside her was a man in a gray overcoat.
The man’s face was partially obscured.
But he was watching me.
Not Rafe.
Me.
“When was this taken?”
“Seven minutes before the shooting.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He followed you through the lobby.”
I felt a cold pressure in my chest.
“No.”
“He did.”
“Maybe he was walking in the same direction.”
“Maybe.”
Malcolm didn’t believe that.
Neither did June.
I handed the phone back.
“I was covering medical support for the charity gala. Hundreds of people were there.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone walking behind me means nothing.”
“I hope you’re right.”
The trauma-room doors opened.
A doctor stepped out.
“Calder family?”
June moved immediately.
“How is he?”
“He’s stable. The bullet passed through soft tissue. He lost blood, but we don’t see major vascular damage. We’re taking him upstairs for observation after imaging.”
June closed her eyes.
Relief.
Malcolm’s shoulders loosened by maybe half an inch.
Then Rafe’s voice came from inside.
“Elena.”
The doctor blinked.
June smiled.
“He means her.”
I sighed.
Rafe lay on the bed with his shirt gone and a dressing wrapped across his torso.
He still looked like he was conducting a board meeting.
“You called?”
“Close the door.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“You don’t give orders in my hospital.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“You work here?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is your hospital.”
“Correct.”
Something like approval passed through his eyes.
“Fine. Leave it open.”
I crossed my arms.
“What?”
“The woman.”
“I already told Malcolm.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m cautious.”
“No. You weren’t cautious outside the hotel.”
“That was medicine.”
“And this isn’t.”
“Exactly.”
Rafe studied me.
“What do you know about the Calder family?”
“Enough to understand why people avoid discussing you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know your family owns Calder Maritime, Calder Development, several restaurants, two security companies, and enough property in Boston that people probably pay rent to you without realizing it.”
“And?”
“And the newspapers have used the phrase organized crime more than once.”
June appeared in the doorway.
“Only more than once?”
“June.”
“What? She knows.”
Rafe’s expression hardened slightly.
I continued.
“I don’t need details.”
“You might.”
“No.”
“You were standing ten yards away from my sister when someone opened fire.”
“That makes me a witness.”
“It may make you more.”
I wanted to laugh.
I didn’t.
“More what?”
“We don’t know.”
Malcolm entered.
“Rafe.”
Something in his voice changed the room.
He held a clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside was the tracking device June had found.
“We pulled the serial information.”
Rafe waited.
“It came from our inventory.”
Nobody spoke.
June’s face lost color.
I looked from Malcolm to Rafe.
“Your inventory?”
Malcolm nodded.
“Calder Security.”
Rafe became completely still.
That silence was different.
Outside the hotel, he had been alert.
Now he looked betrayed.
June whispered, “So one of ours planted it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Rafe’s eyes stayed on Malcolm.
“How many people can access those devices?”
“Eleven.”
“Names.”
“I’m compiling them.”
“Do it faster.”
I stepped closer to the bed.
“Your blood pressure is rising.”
Nobody acknowledged me.
I put two fingers against his wrist.
“Rafe.”
His gaze moved down.
“Breathe.”
He stared at me.
“I am breathing.”
“Not properly.”
June looked ready to laugh again despite everything.
Rafe inhaled slowly.
“Happy?”
“Moderately.”
Malcolm’s phone buzzed.
He looked down.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
“There’s another video.”
He showed us.
The mystery woman entered the hotel elevator.
She pressed fourteen.
The camera angle shifted as the doors closed.
For one second, we could see the keycard sleeve in her hand.
Printed across it was a room number.
1408.
June whispered, “That floor was closed for renovation.”
Rafe looked at Malcolm.
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was she going there?”
Nobody answered.
Rafe started removing the monitor leads.
I slapped his hand away.
“No.”
“We’re checking that room.”
“You’re checking nothing tonight.”
“Elena.”
“If you try to leave, I will personally request restraints.”
Malcolm coughed.
June turned toward the wall.
Rafe looked at me for a long time.
Then he said quietly, “You really don’t care who I am.”
“I care that you have a hole in your side.”
For the first time, he smiled.
It was small.
Almost unwilling.
And completely transformed his face.
Then Malcolm’s phone buzzed again.
The smile disappeared.
“What now?”
Malcolm read the message twice.
“They searched Room 1408.”
“And?”
“No woman.”
“Anything inside?”
Malcolm raised his eyes.
“One chair. One disposable phone.”
He paused.
“And a photograph.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpened.
“Of who?”
Malcolm looked at me.
I already knew the answer.
But hearing it still made my stomach drop.
“Elena.”
The photograph had been taken three days earlier.
May you like
Outside my apartment.
---
