Chapter 3 - Someone Wanted Him Dead Twice
Daniel Wren was supposed to be dead.
I knew because I had watched someone sign the paperwork.
Not his death certificate.
Nothing that clean.
Private contractors were transferred constantly overseas, sometimes under aliases, sometimes under numbers. But after Daniel Wren disappeared from my field hospital, the senior surgeon had told me he’d died during transport.
I never questioned it.
Back then, questioning anything about Meridian Global usually got the same answer.
Need to know.
Apparently I hadn’t needed to know that a dead man would one day walk into a Boston hospital pretending to be an orderly.
Rafe had June moved within twenty minutes.
Not to another hospital.
To a private medical floor hidden inside a rehabilitation building his family owned in Cambridge.
I objected.
Repeatedly.
He ignored me.
Repeatedly.
“You cannot relocate a concussion patient because you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You look like you’re planning to invade a country.”
“That’s concentration.”
“That is absolutely not concentration.”
June, being wheeled toward a private elevator, whispered, “You’re becoming my favorite person.”
Rafe heard her.
“I can still send you to Vermont.”
“You threaten me with Vermont every time I annoy you.”
“Because you hate Vermont.”
“I hate your house in Vermont. There’s a difference.”
Malcolm walked behind them.
I stayed near the elevator.
“I’m not going with you.”
Rafe looked at me.
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Wren knows you recognized him.”
“So?”
“So until we know why he’s here, you’re exposed.”
“I have an apartment.”
“That’s not security.”
“It has three locks.”
Rafe stared.
“Three locks?”
“And an angry downstairs neighbor.”
“Mara.”
“My neighbor once attacked a delivery driver with a broom.”
Malcolm’s mouth twitched.
Rafe did not find this funny.
“Come with us for one night.”
“No.”
“Then take two of my men.”
“Absolutely not.”
“One.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“Rafe.”
June looked between us.
“I don’t know what this is, but I’m enjoying it.”
Rafe closed his eyes briefly.
“Fine. Malcolm takes her home.”
“I can drive.”
“Your car is at the hotel.”
I had forgotten that.
I hated that he knew it.
Eventually I agreed.
Not because Rafe ordered me to.
Because I wanted answers.
Malcolm drove while two SUVs followed.
I sat in the passenger seat.
Rafe and June rode behind us.
“You’ve been with him a long time?” I asked.
“Fourteen years.”
“You trust him?”
“With my life.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Malcolm looked at me.
Smart man.
“You’re learning.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“He trusts fewer people than you think.”
“That doesn’t answer the question either.”
“No.”
“So you’re both irritating.”
“That may be why we get along.”
Boston passed beyond the windows, wet pavement reflecting city lights.
After several minutes, Malcolm spoke.
“Rafe wasn’t always this.”
“This what?”
He considered.
“Untouchable.”
I waited.
“He was twenty-two when his father died. June was seventeen. Half the people around them expected the Calder organization to collapse.”
“Organization.”
His eyes remained on the road.
“We both know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“He spent twelve years making sure nobody could threaten his sister again.”
“That worked wonderfully.”
Malcolm exhaled through his nose.
“Tonight was different.”
“How?”
“Someone knew exactly where June would be standing.”
I turned toward him.
“At the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t beside Rafe when the first shot was fired?”
“No.”
“But the shooter had a direct angle.”
“Yes.”
“That means somebody provided her position.”
Malcolm looked at me.
“Exactly.”
A chill moved through me.
The danger wasn’t outside Rafe’s circle.
It was inside.
My apartment looked painfully ordinary when we arrived.
Third floor.
Brick building.
Plants dying heroically on my windowsill.
A lamp I’d forgotten to switch off.
Malcolm inspected every room before allowing me inside.
“This is unnecessary.”
“Probably.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“Reassurance isn’t my specialty.”
I opened a closet and pulled out a duffel bag.
“You think I should leave?”
“I think Rafe will continue arguing until you do.”
“Does he always get his way?”
“Almost.”
“Not tonight.”
“No.”
Malcolm glanced toward me.
“And that worries me.”
“Why?”
“Because he noticed.”
I stared.
“Noticed what?”
But Malcolm was already walking toward the window.
The glass was slightly open.
I stopped.
I never left it open.
Malcolm noticed my expression.
“You didn’t do that?”
“No.”
He pulled me backward immediately.
One of his men entered.
Then another.
They searched the apartment.
Nothing.
No person.
No obvious theft.
Until I saw the photograph.
It sat on my desk.
An old picture from Afghanistan.
Five nurses standing outside a canvas hospital tent.
Someone had taken a black marker and circled my face.
Underneath, three words had been written.
YOU REMEMBER WREN.
Malcolm called Rafe.
He arrived nine minutes later.
No hospital gown now.
Black shirt.
Fresh dressing underneath.
Fury in his eyes.
He stared at the photograph.
Then at me.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who has keys?”
“Nobody.”
“Family?”
“My mother lives in Maine.”
“Friends?”
“A few.”
“Boyfriend?”
I looked at him.
Malcolm coughed.
Rafe’s expression did not change.
“That was a security question.”
“Sure.”
“Do you have one?”
“No.”
His jaw relaxed slightly.
I noticed.
I wished I hadn’t.
“Pack.”
“Rafe—”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
That made it more serious.
“Someone entered your home and left a threat. You’re not staying here.”
“I don’t belong in your world.”
His gaze held mine.
“Tonight somebody from my world entered yours.”
There was no answer to that.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting inside Rafe Calder’s armored SUV with my duffel bag at my feet.
His Cambridge property wasn’t a mansion.
It was worse.
A converted nineteenth-century industrial building overlooking the Charles River, all brick, steel, glass, and discreet security.
June had already been settled upstairs.
A private physician was checking her.
Rafe’s doctor wanted to examine him too.
Naturally he refused.
I pointed toward a chair.
“Sit.”
He glared.
I waited.
He sat.
The doctor looked at me as though witnessing a religious event.
After the examination, everyone left except Rafe and me.
I stood by the windows.
The city reflected in the river below.
“You don’t remember anything else about Wren?” he asked.
“One thing.”
Rafe waited.
I hated admitting it.
“The night he disappeared, he woke up after surgery.”
“And?”
“He was terrified.”
“Of what?”
“He kept saying they knew.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“What else?”
I closed my eyes.
Memory returned in fragments.
Daniel’s dusty face.
His shaking hand.
The oxygen line.
A silver falcon patch partly torn from his vest.
“He said something about a ledger.”
Rafe became completely still.
“What ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
“What exactly did he say?”
I forced myself back into the memory.
“Don’t let Meridian get the ledger.”
Rafe stood.
This time I didn’t stop him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That expression is not nothing.”
He walked toward a locked cabinet.
Removed a folder.
Placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Rafe, June, their father, and another man I didn’t recognize.
Behind them stood containers at Boston Harbor.
On one container was a symbol.
A silver falcon.
I stared.
“My father did business with Meridian,” Rafe said.
“When?”
“Until the week he died.”
My stomach dropped.
“How did he die?”
“Car accident.”
“You don’t believe that anymore.”
Rafe looked toward the photograph.
“No.”
A phone rang.
He answered.
Malcolm’s voice was audible through the speaker.
“We recovered partial footage from the Grand Hawthorne.”
Rafe straightened.
“Shooter?”
“Not clearly.”
“Then what?”
“There’s something you need to see.”
Minutes later, security footage appeared on the television.
Ballroom corridor.
Guests.
Staff.
June walking toward the exit.
Then a man stepped into view.
Not Daniel Wren.
Someone else.
He faced the camera for less than two seconds.
Rafe stopped breathing.
I looked at him.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Rafe’s voice had changed.
For the first time since meeting him, I heard something underneath the anger.
Betrayal.
“That man has worked for my family for nineteen years.”
The image froze.
A handsome man in a dark suit.
Silver hair.
Calm smile.
Rafe stared at him.
“His name is Damian Holt.”
Malcolm spoke through the phone.
“And according to the recovered footage, Damian was standing beside whoever fired at June.”
The room went silent.
May you like
Rafe’s closest circle had just gotten much smaller.
And somewhere inside Boston, a man he had trusted for almost two decades knew we had finally seen his face.
