Chapter 3 - A Bullet Meant for Someone Else
I stared at Malcolm until I was certain I had misunderstood.
“You’re saying someone had a photograph of me?”
“Yes.”
“In a hotel room connected to tonight’s shooting?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
Rafe’s face had become unreadable.
“That usually means we’re missing information.”
I looked at him.
“We?”
“You’re in the photograph.”
“I’m still not part of your organization.”
“No one said you were.”
“You keep saying we.”
Rafe glanced at Malcolm.
“Get two people to her apartment.”
“No.”
Both men looked at me.
“You are not sending armed strangers into my home.”
“They won’t enter unless necessary.”
“No.”
“Elena—”
“I have neighbors.”
“So?”
“So Mrs. Donnelly across the hall calls the police when a delivery driver parks too close to the fire hydrant. If two men in black suits stand outside my door at midnight, she’ll activate the National Guard.”
June laughed.
Rafe did not.
“Malcolm, plain clothes.”
“You’re not listening.”
“I am. I’m adjusting.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
The doctor returned before the argument could continue and informed Rafe that he would remain hospitalized overnight.
Rafe disagreed.
The doctor didn’t care.
I liked him immediately.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in a small consultation room with two Boston detectives.
Detective Nora Grant was in her late forties, sharp-eyed and direct.
Her partner, David Kim, seemed quieter but missed nothing.
I told them everything.
The woman.
The badge.
The man following me through the lobby.
The timing.
The photograph.
Grant folded her hands.
“Have you had problems recently?”
“No.”
“Threats?”
“No.”
“Unusual calls?”
“No.”
“Anyone following you?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Relationship trouble?”
“No.”
“Financial disputes?”
“No.”
“Any connection to Calder before tonight?”
“None.”
Detective Kim glanced at his notes.
“You served overseas.”
“Combat nursing.”
“Any chance this relates to someone from that period?”
“I’ve been home five years.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
I thought about it.
“No.”
Grant leaned back.
“Your photograph changes the situation.”
“I understand.”
“You shouldn’t return home tonight.”
I laughed once.
“I’m sorry?”
“We can arrange somewhere safe.”
Rafe’s voice came from the doorway.
“She can stay at one of mine.”
Every person in the room turned.
He stood there wearing hospital scrub pants and a dark sweater someone had brought him.
I stared.
“You’re supposed to be in bed.”
“The room became boring.”
Detective Grant looked deeply unimpressed.
“Mr. Calder.”
“Detective.”
“You listening outside police interviews now?”
“The door was open.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
I pointed toward the hallway.
“Back to bed.”
Rafe looked at me.
Detective Kim lowered his head.
Grant’s mouth twitched.
Rafe ignored me.
“She should not return home.”
“I’m capable of making that decision.”
“You’re also capable of walking toward a bleeding armed man. Your judgment is questionable.”
June appeared behind him.
“Finally, somebody said it.”
I looked at both of them.
“Why are you all suddenly a committee?”
Grant raised a hand.
“Ms. Ward, forget Mr. Calder for a second. We agree on one point. Whoever used Room 1408 had your photograph. Until we understand why, staying somewhere unpredictable is smart.”
That was harder to dismiss.
“Fine.”
Rafe said, “She stays at Beacon Hill.”
“No.”
“My sister has an apartment there.”
June nodded.
“Two bedrooms. Private garage. Building security.”
“I am not moving into a Calder property.”
June looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because that is how every bad decision in Boston begins.”
Even Grant laughed.
Rafe didn’t.
“We’ll arrange something else,” Grant said.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I looked at the screen.
One message.
YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO TOUCH HIM.
Everything inside me went cold.
Rafe saw my face.
“What?”
I showed Grant.
She took the phone.
Nobody spoke.
A second message appeared.
THE NEXT BULLET WON’T MISS.
Rafe’s expression changed.
I had watched him get shot without panic.
I had watched him discover someone inside his own organization might have betrayed him.
Neither had produced the look on his face now.
This was anger.
Controlled.
Focused.
Terrifyingly calm.
Grant stood.
“No one leaves.”
Rafe’s eyes never left the phone.
“That number traced?”
Kim was already working.
“Probably disposable.”
Rafe looked at Malcolm.
“Find out anyway.”
Detective Grant pointed at him.
“You do not investigate my witness independently.”
Rafe’s gaze moved to her.
“Then investigate faster.”
The air changed.
I stepped between them before the testosterone could become legally complicated.
“Stop.”
Both looked at me.
“This is not helping.”
Grant nodded first.
Rafe said nothing.
I took my phone back.
The message told me something important.
“You were not supposed to touch him.”
Grant understood immediately.
“You think they were watching.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed.
“The shooting might not have been aimed at June.”
June looked at him.
“What?”
He continued.
“If Elena’s involvement mattered enough to trigger a threat, maybe somebody expected a specific outcome.”
I remembered approaching him.
His shirt soaked.
The delay.
The first paramedic backing away.
“What outcome?”
Rafe looked directly at me.
“My death.”
Silence.
June whispered, “But the wound wasn’t fatal.”
“Not immediately.”
I understood before she did.
“If nobody treated you quickly…”
Rafe nodded.
“The shooter may have expected me to refuse care.”
Malcolm’s jaw tightened.
“And everybody knew you would.”
Rafe had insisted on June being checked first.
He had ignored the medic.
He had remained standing.
Whoever planned the shooting understood his habits.
Someone knew he would prioritize his sister.
Someone knew his men would hesitate to challenge him.
Someone knew paramedics might be intimidated.
And then I had disrupted the plan.
I had walked through the guards.
Ordered him to sit.
Cut open his shirt.
Stopped the bleeding.
The threatening message suddenly made terrible sense.
I hadn’t been targeted before the shooting.
My photograph may have been surveillance of event medical staff.
The mysterious people had been watching possible variables.
And when I became one, they noticed.
Grant said, “We need to assume Ms. Ward is now a secondary target.”
Secondary.
There was something incredibly unpleasant about hearing yourself described that way.
June reached for my hand.
Unexpectedly.
“Stay with me.”
I looked at her.
“You barely know me.”
“You saved my brother.”
“I did my job.”
“Most people wouldn’t have challenged him.”
“Your brother is stubborn.”
“I know.”
Rafe watched us.
His anger had disappeared behind that unreadable mask again.
“I have a secure property outside the city.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“I’m not hiding in a mafia fortress.”
“It has a garden.”
June said it so seriously that I laughed.
Rafe looked irritated.
“June.”
“What? She likes normal things.”
“You don’t know what I like.”
“You’re a nurse. Nurses like plants.”
“That is medically unsupported.”
Detective Grant cleared her throat.
“As entertaining as this is, I want Ms. Ward somewhere police can coordinate security.”
Rafe replied, “My property is more secure.”
“That is exactly the sentence that concerns me.”
Eventually a compromise was reached.
I would stay at June’s Beacon Hill apartment.
Two plainclothes officers would remain nearby.
Malcolm could have one unarmed security person inside the building lobby.
Rafe hated the arrangement.
Grant hated it slightly less.
At one in the morning, I left the hospital with June.
Rafe remained upstairs under explicit medical orders.
Before the elevator doors closed, he called my name.
“Elena.”
I turned.
He stood at the end of the corridor.
“You saved my life tonight.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I went with the safest option.
“Get back in bed.”
June burst out laughing as the doors closed.
“You know he’s going to fall in love with you, right?”
I stared at her.
“He has a gunshot wound.”
“That isn’t a no.”
“It is absolutely a no.”
June smiled.
“Sure.”
The elevator descended.
Neither of us knew that fourteen floors below, a man in a maintenance uniform was waiting in the parking garage.
Or that clipped inside his jacket was a photograph of June.
On the back, written in black ink, were six words.
May you like
THE SISTER WAS ALWAYS THE TARGET.
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