Chapter 5 - The Woman in the Freezer Video
The first thing Sadi felt was disbelief.
The second was rage.
"I never touched that man."
Dr. Mara Klein's voice remained calm through the speaker.
"I believe you."
"Apparently somebody does not."
Enzo looked out the windshield.
"Nobody files that warrant this fast without preparation."
Gabriel's gaze sharpened.
"Which means it existed before the body was found."
Sadi stared at him.
"They planned to blame me before the shooting even happened."
"Looks that way."
The words made everything worse.
A crime committed during chaos was frightening.
A crime written around her in advance was something else entirely.
Dr. Klein continued.
"The warrant packet includes security footage."
Sadi's stomach tightened.
"Footage of what?"
"A woman in a Belladonna uniform entering the kitchen corridor at 9:31."
"That could be half the staff."
"The woman has your hair, your height, and your apron number."
Sadi went silent.
Enzo turned around.
"Apron number?"
"Forty-three."
Sadi looked down at the ruined clothes she was still wearing.
Her apron was gone.
She had removed it after the shooting because it was soaked with Gabriel's blood.
She remembered placing it on a chair near the employee room.
"Someone took my apron."
Gabriel asked the next question.
"Can you see her face?"
Dr. Klein hesitated.
"Not clearly."
"Convenient."
"Very."
Sadi leaned toward the phone.
"What else is in the warrant?"
"A witness statement."
"From who?"
Another pause.
"Lucia Alvarez."
Sadi stopped breathing for a second.
Lucia had been crying in the employee room when Sadi left Belladonna.
Sadi had protected her from the man who grabbed her.
She had stayed after closing because Lucia was too shaken to clean alone.
"What did she say?"
Dr. Klein's voice softened.
"She says she saw you follow the fake waiter into the kitchen ten minutes before his body was discovered."
Sadi closed her eyes.
"That is a lie."
"I know."
"You do not know me."
"I know a prewritten warrant when I see one."
Gabriel looked toward the road behind them.
"Mara, can you treat me somewhere else?"
"Maybe."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only honest one I have."
She exhaled.
"Your scans were sent to me before the men arrived."
Enzo looked at the phone.
"By who?"
"One of your younger doctors."
"Name?"
"Owen Park."
Gabriel frowned.
"I do not know him."
"He said that was why he sent them."
"What did you see?"
Dr. Klein paused again.
"I saw damage that does not match the bullet path."
Sadi looked at Gabriel's shoulder.
"What does that mean?"
"The bullet hit the upper shoulder and fractured the scapular edge, but the vascular collapse is lower and more diffuse."
Enzo's voice hardened.
"English."
"The bullet did not cause all of this."
Nobody spoke.
Sadi heard her mother's last warning inside her head.
Not the bullet.
Gabriel heard it too.
She could tell by his face.
Dr. Klein continued.
"Something else is shutting down circulation in his arm."
Sadi stared at the clear syringe Enzo had sealed inside a plastic evidence bag.
"Could an injection do it?"
"Yes."
"What kind?"
"Several possibilities."
"Can you reverse it?"
"If I know what it is."
Gabriel's voice stayed level.
"How long do you need?"
"To identify the compound, hours."
"I may not have hours."
"Then bring me the syringe."
Enzo glanced toward the driver.
"Where?"
Dr. Klein gave them an address for an abandoned diagnostic center owned by one of her former partners.
It was forty minutes away.
Enzo ended the call.
Sadi stared out the window at the rain.
Her phone was still in her purse at Belladonna.
Her apartment was across the city.
Her life had been reduced to the wet clothes on her body and a murder warrant she did not deserve.
Gabriel broke the silence.
"Lucia is being pressured."
Sadi looked at him.
"You do not know that."
"You protected her."
"People betray people who help them every day."
"True."
"That was not supposed to be agreement."
"I do not offer comfort I cannot prove."
Sadi looked away.
"That might be the first honest thing anyone has said tonight."
Gabriel accepted the insult.
They changed vehicles twice before reaching the diagnostic center.
The building sat behind a closed pharmacy in an industrial strip that had been abandoned after a flood.
Half the parking lot was underwater.
The lights were off.
Enzo knocked three times on a side door.
A woman opened it with a pistol in one hand.
She was in her early forties, tall, dark-haired, and dressed in blue surgical scrubs beneath a raincoat.
"You look terrible," she told Gabriel.
"Good to see you too, Mara."
Dr. Klein's eyes moved to Sadi.
"Moreno?"
"Yes."
"Come inside before someone decides to earn a promotion."
The building smelled like dust and disinfectant.
One examination room still had working backup power.
Dr. Klein cut away Gabriel's bandages.
Sadi saw the full wound for the first time.
The bullet injury looked brutal.
The skin below it looked worse.
A gray-blue pattern spread across his upper arm like frost under glass.
Dr. Klein's face changed.
"This is progressing too fast."
Gabriel lay back on the exam table.
"Can you save it?"
"Maybe."
"You doctors love that word."
"Because patients like you love waiting until every option is terrible."
She took the syringe from Enzo.
"Where did this come from?"
Sadi answered.
"A surgeon tried to inject it after the power went out."
Dr. Klein held it under the light.
"Name?"
Enzo gave it.
Mara went still.
"Dr. Leonard Harker?"
"You know him?"
"He trained me."
Enzo's jaw tightened.
"Did he work for G.F.H.?"
Mara's eyes lifted.
"Where did you hear that name?"
Gabriel watched her.
"Answer him."
Mara set down the syringe.
"My residency fellowship was funded by a foundation called Giovanni Falcone Health."
Gabriel sat up slightly.
"Health?"
"Yes."
Enzo shook his head.
"G.F.H. was Holdings."
Mara looked between them.
"Then somebody reused the initials."
Sadi felt another door opening into another room she did not want to enter.
"When?"
"About fifteen years ago."
"Where?"
"A private surgical center outside Newark."
Sadi's mouth went dry.
"Was Rosa Moreno ever there?"
Mara's expression changed.
"Why are you asking me that?"
Sadi stepped closer.
"She was my mother."
Mara stared at her.
For the first time, the doctor's composure cracked.
"You are Rosa's daughter?"
Sadi felt the room tilt.
"You knew her."
Mara sat down slowly.
"I was a resident."
"Did you know her?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me what happened."
Mara looked at Gabriel.
"Not until I stabilize him."
Sadi almost snapped at her.
Then she saw Gabriel's fingers trembling.
His skin had become almost white.
She swallowed her anger.
"Fine."
Mara began working.
She drew blood, started a clean IV, and connected a portable ultrasound to Gabriel's arm.
She studied the screen for several minutes.
"There is clotting where there should not be clotting."
Enzo asked, "From the bullet?"
"No."
"From the injection?"
"Possibly."
Sadi watched her scan farther down the arm.
Mara stopped near Gabriel's inner elbow.
"There."
A tiny red puncture mark sat beneath the edge of his sleeve line.
Sadi leaned closer.
"That is not from the bullet."
"No."
Gabriel looked at it.
"Someone injected me."
Mara nodded.
"Hours ago."
Enzo swore quietly.
Sadi thought back to the restaurant floor.
Guards surrounded Gabriel.
A physician arrived.
A paramedic knelt near his arm.
People moved everywhere.
Anyone could have done it.
Then she remembered something.
A hand.
A gold ring.
A man had reached across her to press two fingers against Gabriel's wrist.
She had assumed he was checking a pulse.
"There was someone beside me."
Enzo turned.
"Who?"
"At Belladonna, after the shooting."
"Describe him."
Sadi closed her eyes.
Dark sleeve.
Clean nails.
Gold signet ring.
A falcon carved into black stone.
Her eyes opened.
"He wore a ring."
Gabriel's face changed before she described it.
"Black stone?"
Sadi stared at him.
"Yes."
Enzo went silent.
Mara looked between them.
"Who wears that?"
Gabriel answered.
"Family."
Sadi's pulse began to pound.
"Matteo?"
Gabriel shook his head.
"Matteo wears silver."
"Then who?"
Gabriel looked at Enzo.
Enzo looked away.
Sadi's anger returned instantly.
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?" Enzo asked.
"Looking at each other like I am the only person in the room who is not allowed to know the answer."
Gabriel said the name.
"Victor Falcone."
Sadi frowned.
"Who is Victor?"
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
"My brother."
The room became silent.
Sadi stared at him.
"You have a brother?"
"Had."
"What does that mean?"
Gabriel looked at the tiny puncture in his arm.
"Victor died twelve years ago."
Mara's portable analyzer beeped.
She turned toward it.
A line of results appeared on the screen.
Her face drained of color.
"What?" Enzo asked.
Mara did not answer immediately.
She ran the test again.
The second result matched the first.
Gabriel looked at her.
"Say it."
Mara swallowed.
"The compound in your blood is called Vascorin-X."
Enzo's face went blank.
Sadi had never heard the name.
Gabriel clearly had.
"That drug was destroyed," he said.
Mara shook her head.
"Apparently not."
Sadi looked from one face to another.
"What is Vascorin-X?"
Mara answered carefully.
"An experimental vascular agent that can make healthy tissue look unsalvageable within hours."
Sadi stared at Gabriel's arm.
"So the surgeons would amputate."
"Yes."
"And if they did not?"
Mara looked at Gabriel.
"The clots would spread."
"To his heart?"
"Eventually."
Sadi felt sick.
"Who developed it?"
Mara's eyes moved toward her.
"Giovanni Falcone Health."
Sadi stopped breathing.
May you like
Mara continued.
"And the nurse who exposed the trial was Rosa Moreno."
