Chapter 2 - THE PATIENT IN BOSTON
I called Eli seventeen times.
No answer.
On the eighteenth attempt, his phone went straight to voicemail.
I forgot Julian Sterling existed.
I forgot the guns.
I forgot Manhattan.
I grabbed my coat.
Knox blocked the elevator.
“Move.”
“No.”
“My brother is seventeen years old.”
“I know.”
That stopped me.
“How?”
“We ran you before you entered.”
“Then run me again while getting out of my way.”
Julian spoke behind us.
“Knox.”
Knox stepped aside.
I hit the elevator button.
Julian said, “My car gets you there faster.”
“I don't need your car.”
“You need something.”
I turned.
He was pale, exhausted and furious.
Not at me.
At whoever had taken Claire.
“Your brother and my sister disappeared within ten minutes of each other.”
“You think they're connected?”
“I don't believe in coincidences anymore.”
Neither did I.
Forty minutes later, I was in a black SUV heading north.
Julian was beside me.
“You're supposed to be in bed.”
“So are you.”
“I’m not.”
“Neither am I.”
He had brought portable respiratory support and enough security to invade a small country.
I hated that it made me feel safer.
The Boston infusion center was nearly empty when we arrived.
Eli's chair was vacant.
A nurse recognized me.
“Maya?”
“Where is he?”
“Transferred.”
My heart stopped.
“To where?”
“St. Gabriel's.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Eli's trial is here.”
She frowned.
“The order came from the principal investigator.”
“Who?”
She checked.
Then looked confused.
“Dr. Richard Mercer.”
The world tilted.
Mercer had no authority over Eli's leukemia trial.
Or he shouldn't have.
Julian stood behind me.
“Where is St. Gabriel's?”
“There isn't one in Boston,” I whispered.
The transfer was fake.
Eli had been abducted from a hospital using medical paperwork.
I nearly collapsed.
Julian caught my elbow.
I ripped away.
“Don't.”
He released me immediately.
That mattered.
“Find him,” I told Knox.
Knox was already moving.
I went to Eli's research file.
Something else was wrong.
Three months earlier, his trial sponsor had changed.
The new sponsor?
Helix Meridian Therapeutics.
I knew that name.
It was one of the companies involved in the kickback scheme I'd exposed.
The scheme that got me suspended.
I opened the billing records.
Then stopped breathing.
Helix Meridian also funded Richard Mercer's university lab.
Julian read my face.
“What?”
“My suspension.”
I looked at him.
“It wasn't separate.”
Someone had pushed me out of my hospital two days before a concierge agency suddenly offered me twelve thousand dollars to care for Julian.
“Someone wanted you unemployed,” Julian said.
“Or desperate.”
“Why?”
I thought about the message.
VANCE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO TAKE THIS SHIFT.
Maybe the agency had been infiltrated.
Maybe I was supposed to accept another job.
Maybe someone changed assignments.
We called the agency.
The scheduler was terrified.
“Maya wasn't the original therapist.”
“Who was?”
“Rachel Kim.”
“What happened?”
“She called out.”
“Why?”
Silence.
Then:
“Her apartment burned yesterday.”
Julian and I looked at each other.
Another fire.
Newark.
Rachel.
Someone liked destroying evidence with flames.
Knox found security footage of Eli leaving the hospital.
He wasn't dragged.
He walked.
Beside him was Claire Mercer.
Julian stared at the screen.
“My sister took him.”
I shook my head.
“Look closer.”
Claire's hand was gripping Eli's arm.
But her face?
Terrified.
Someone walked behind them.
Richard.
Claire hadn't kidnapped my brother.
She was being used to move him.
The footage showed them entering a medical transport van.
Plate visible.
Knox traced it.
The van belonged to a private pulmonary research facility in Connecticut.
Julian stood.
“We go now.”
I grabbed him.
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“My sister—”
“Your lungs.”
“I can manage.”
“No, you can't.”
He stepped closer.
“Miss Vance, people have been telling me what I can and cannot survive for three months.”
“And?”
“They've usually been wrong.”
“So prove them wrong intelligently.”
Silence.
“Ten minutes,” I said. “I stabilize you. Then we go.”
His mouth twitched.
“Ten.”
“Fifteen.”
“You said ten.”
“I changed my mind.”
For the first time, Julian Sterling smiled at me.
It was not warm.
But it was real.
“Dangerous woman.”
“You have no idea.”
May you like
We left in twelve.
---
