Chapter 4 - The Name on the Guest List
I didn’t sleep.
June’s Beacon Hill apartment was beautiful, quiet and completely useless against an overactive mind.
At four in the morning, I stood beside the kitchen window drinking coffee while Boston lay dark beyond the glass.
June appeared wearing sweatpants and one of her brother’s oversized college shirts.
“You always wake this early?”
“I never went to sleep.”
“Same.”
She opened a cabinet.
“What does someone who has been shot usually eat after leaving the hospital?”
“Your brother is not leaving the hospital.”
June gave me a look.
“You really haven’t learned much about Rafe yet.”
Twenty minutes later, the building’s private elevator opened.
Rafe walked out.
I closed my eyes.
“No.”
“Good morning.”
“No.”
“You haven’t even asked why I’m here.”
“Because you’re arrogant, medically irresponsible, and surrounded by people who are apparently incapable of saying no.”
Malcolm stepped out behind him.
“I tried.”
Rafe glanced back.
“Once.”
“Four times.”
June took the coffee pot.
“I told you.”
Rafe looked pale beneath his usual controlled expression.
That worried me more than I wanted to admit.
“You should be in a hospital.”
“I have a doctor coming here.”
“A doctor who agreed to discharge you?”
“No.”
“Then that is not reassuring.”
Rafe removed his coat slowly.
I saw the tension in his jaw.
Pain.
I pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
He sat.
June looked between us.
“This is my favorite thing now.”
I checked his dressing.
No new bleeding.
His temperature was normal.
Pulse slightly elevated.
“You walked out against medical advice.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Someone accessed June’s parking records.”
June froze.
“What?”
Malcolm set a folder on the table.
“Your car was tracked for almost three weeks.”
June stared at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We found out twenty minutes ago.”
Rafe’s expression was stone.
“The device under the SUV wasn’t planted last night. It was replaced last night.”
My coffee suddenly tasted bitter.
“Replaced?”
Malcolm nodded.
“Original tracker was installed nearly a month ago. Whoever is doing this has been updating hardware.”
“That means access to her car.”
“Yes.”
“Garage?”
“Maybe.”
“House?”
“Maybe.”
June sat down.
For the first time, she looked genuinely afraid.
Rafe reached across the table and touched her wrist.
Only once.
It was enough.
“We’ll find them.”
She looked at him.
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can.”
I wanted to tell him nobody could guarantee safety.
But I understood why he did.
Sometimes people didn’t need statistics.
They needed certainty borrowed from someone else.
Malcolm opened the folder.
“The gala guest list.”
More than four hundred names.
Politicians.
Business owners.
Attorneys.
Doctors.
Charity executives.
Hotel staff.
Rafe looked at me.
“Anyone familiar?”
I scanned the pages.
“No.”
“Take your time.”
“I treated maybe thirty people during preliminary screenings. Dehydration, anxiety, one sprained ankle.”
June leaned over my shoulder.
“What about staff?”
I turned several pages.
Catering.
Security.
Housekeeping supervisors.
Medical contractors.
Then I stopped.
A name.
Dr. Adrian Voss.
My former commanding physician.
I hadn’t seen him in five years.
Rafe noticed immediately.
“Who?”
“No one.”
“Elena.”
I stared at the name.
“Someone I worked with overseas.”
Malcolm pulled out his phone.
“Full name?”
“Don’t.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because Adrian Voss is a trauma surgeon. He’s not involved in this.”
Rafe’s voice softened.
“You looked afraid.”
“I was surprised.”
“Different?”
“Yes.”
“Not from where I’m sitting.”
I hated how observant he was.
June asked, “What happened between you?”
“Nothing.”
Rafe said, “That means something happened.”
I pushed the folder away.
“Dr. Voss ran one of our medical teams. He was brilliant. Difficult. Controlling. We disagreed often.”
“About?”
“Patient priorities.”
Malcolm looked up from the phone.
“He currently works in Boston.”
“I know.”
“You’ve stayed in contact?”
“No.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpened.
“Why not?”
“Because people move on.”
Nobody believed me.
Fine.
The truth was more complicated.
Adrian Voss had once saved my life.
He had also nearly ended my career.
During our last deployment, a convoy attack overwhelmed our field unit.
Voss ordered us to prioritize soldiers according to operational status.
I refused.
There was a civilian boy who needed surgery.
Voss wanted the operating room reserved.
I ignored him.
The boy survived.
A soldier waited fourteen additional minutes.
He survived too.
But Voss reported me for insubordination.
The investigation cleared me.
Our friendship did not survive it.
Rafe listened without interrupting.
“What kind of man holds a grudge five years?”
“Not him.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
Malcolm turned his phone around.
A photograph showed Voss at the gala.
Gray tuxedo.
Silver hair.
Standing near the ballroom entrance.
Behind him—
The woman in the black coat.
My stomach dropped.
June whispered, “They know each other?”
“No.”
I leaned closer.
It could have been coincidence.
A crowded ballroom.
People standing near other people.
Nothing more.
Then Malcolm enlarged the image.
Voss’s hand was extended behind him.
The woman was taking something from it.
A keycard.
Nobody spoke.
I felt something inside me fracture.
“No.”
Rafe watched me.
“Elena.”
“No.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“I told you I don’t.”
“Do you know why Voss would have access to the closed fourteenth floor?”
“No.”
“Would he know you were working that gala?”
I thought about scheduling.
The medical staffing list had been circulated to physicians affiliated with the charity.
Yes.
He could have known.
I stood.
“I need air.”
Rafe rose too.
I pointed.
“Sit down.”
“Elena.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He studied me.
Then sat again.
I walked onto the balcony.
Cold air hit my face.
Boston was beginning to brighten toward dawn.
A few moments later, June joined me.
“He likes you.”
“Your brother is suspicious of me.”
“No. Rafe is suspicious of everybody.”
“Comforting.”
“You’re different.”
I looked at her.
“You’ve known me one night.”
“Yes. And I’ve known him thirty-two years.”
She leaned against the railing.
“My brother doesn’t let people tell him what to do.”
“I noticed.”
“He especially doesn’t let strangers touch him.”
“He was bleeding.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
I ignored that.
June’s smile faded.
“When our parents died, Rafe was nineteen and I was eleven.”
I hadn’t known that.
“He raised you?”
“He tried.”
“What happened?”
“Our father left debts. Dangerous ones. Rafe started doing things he shouldn’t have done because he believed keeping me safe justified everything.”
She looked through the glass doors at him.
“He became very good at being feared.”
“Is he a criminal?”
June didn’t answer immediately.
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised me.
“He’s also my brother.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
I had treated people in war zones whose worst decisions and best qualities existed in the same body.
Humans were inconvenient like that.
Malcolm opened the balcony door.
“We have a problem.”
Rafe was already standing.
“What?”
“Adrian Voss left the hotel three minutes before the shooting.”
I turned.
Malcolm continued.
“And his phone has been disconnected.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Maybe he lost it.”
“There’s more.”
There always was.
Malcolm placed a printed photograph on the table.
The image showed Voss entering a parking garage two nights earlier.
Beside him was the mystery woman.
This time there was no doubt.
They were talking.
Rafe looked at me.
“Still think it’s coincidence?”
I couldn’t answer.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Rafe held out his hand.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“It might be police.”
“It isn’t.”
The phone continued ringing.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a familiar male voice.
A voice I had not heard in five years.
“Elena.”
My blood turned cold.
“Adrian?”
Rafe went completely still.
Voss exhaled slowly.
“Listen carefully. You are in danger.”
I looked at Rafe.
“What happened at the hotel?”
“That shooting was only the beginning.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Who was the woman?”
A pause.
When Voss spoke again, his voice sounded afraid.
“Her name is Claire Mercer.”
“Who is she?”
Another pause.
Then he said something that made Rafe move closer.
“She works for Calder.”
Rafe’s expression changed.
Voss continued.
“And if Rafe Calder trusts the wrong person tonight, his sister will be dead before sunrise tomorrow.”
May you like
The line went dead.
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