Chapter 3 - Someone Inside the House
Sadi recognized him.
Anthony Rourke.
Head of night security.
He was forty-something, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven, and had the permanent expression of a man who considered smiling a security vulnerability.
His gaze dropped to the syringe.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
“Sadi.”
“How do you know it’s mine to give?”
Rourke stepped closer.
Sadi backed away.
“Stay there.”
His expression changed.
Not guilt.
Annoyance.
“You’re standing barefoot in a hallway at two in the morning holding medical waste. Give it to me before you stab yourself.”
That was annoyingly reasonable.
Still, Sadi tightened her grip.
“Where did it come from?”
“I was going to ask you.”
A motor hummed behind her.
Desmond appeared around the corner in his wheelchair.
He wore black pajama pants and a T-shirt, his hair disordered from sleep.
“What’s happening?”
Rourke immediately straightened.
“Nothing.”
Sadi said, “That’s comforting. Your security chief thinks mysterious syringes outside locked rooms qualify as nothing.”
Desmond’s gaze sharpened.
“Show me.”
She handed it over.
His expression became unreadable.
“Rourke.”
“Boss?”
“Lock down the house.”
Rourke hesitated.
Only for half a second.
But Sadi saw it.
So did Desmond.
“Now.”
Within minutes, steel security shutters sealed the ground-floor exits. Guards swept corridors. Cameras were reviewed.
Nothing.
The hallway camera had gone dark for eleven minutes.
Exactly eleven.
Desmond summoned Frankie.
“Who can disable internal surveillance?”
“Me. Rourke. Sullivan. You.”
Sadi crossed her arms.
“That’s a pleasantly short suspect list.”
Desmond ignored her.
“Test the syringe.”
Frankie left.
Sadi followed Desmond into his study.
“You’re sending me home,” she said.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“That was not a question.”
“Neither was my answer.”
His chair stopped.
“Sadi, somebody breached my security.”
“Exactly why your nurse should stay.”
“This has nothing to do with nursing.”
“Someone left an unlabeled syringe twenty feet from your bedroom after your camera mysteriously stopped working. That has quite a lot to do with nursing.”
Desmond’s jaw flexed.
“You don’t understand what kind of people—”
She slammed both palms onto his desk.
“No. You don’t get to do that.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Do what?”
“Decide I’m stupid because you’re scared.”
Silence.
Desmond looked as though she had slapped him.
“I’m not scared.”
“You’re terrified.”
His expression turned dangerous.
Sadi continued anyway.
“Not for yourself. For me.”
His gaze locked onto hers.
There it was.
Neither of them wanted to name it.
Frankie interrupted twenty minutes later.
The syringe contained potassium chloride.
In sufficient concentration, injected intravenously, it could stop a heart.
Sadi felt the room turn cold.
Desmond did not react outwardly.
“Who has access to my medications?”
“Sadi. Dr. Brennan. Two nurses from the agency.”
“And?”
Frankie hesitated.
“Rourke has emergency medical access.”
Sadi slowly looked at Desmond.
He was already looking toward the door.
Rourke had disappeared.
His phone had been abandoned in the security office.
His car remained outside.
But the man himself was gone.
They found the tunnel thirty minutes later.
A hidden passage beneath the wine cellar led beyond the estate wall.
Desmond knew about it.
Only five other people did.
One of them was dead.
Another was his uncle Patrick.
That name changed him.
“Your uncle?” Sadi asked.
Desmond looked toward Frankie.
“Find him.”
Patrick Gallagher arrived before noon.
He was sixty, silver-haired and elegantly dressed, with the polished charm Desmond lacked.
He embraced his nephew.
Then he noticed Sadi.
“So you’re the miracle worker.”
“I’m mostly caffeine and bad decisions.”
Patrick laughed.
Desmond did not.
During lunch, Patrick spoke warmly about family.
He had practically raised Desmond after his father died.
He had overseen Gallagher businesses while Desmond recovered.
He had personally hired additional security after the bombing.
Sadi wanted to like him.
That bothered her.
People who wanted to kill you rarely arrived wearing signs.
That evening, she entered Desmond’s bedroom to find him struggling to transfer from his chair.
“Stop.”
“I can do it.”
His arm shook.
“Desmond.”
“I said I can—”
His hand slipped.
Sadi lunged.
They hit the mattress together.
She landed partly across his chest.
For a second, anger flashed across his face.
Then humiliation replaced it.
Sadi pushed herself up.
“I had it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Get off me.”
She did.
He stared away.
“I used to run five miles every morning.”
Sadi said nothing.
“I boxed three nights a week. I could bench three hundred pounds.”
His voice roughened.
“Now I can’t get into my own bed.”
She sat beside him.
“You want me to tell you it doesn’t matter?”
“No.”
“Good. Because it matters.”
He looked at her.
“You lost something enormous, Desmond. Pretending otherwise would be insulting.”
His eyes glistened.
“But losing your legs didn’t erase everything else.”
She touched his hand.
“You’re still here.”
His fingers slowly closed around hers.
Then the bedroom lights went out.
A gunshot exploded downstairs.
Desmond grabbed Sadi and pulled her behind the bed.
More shots.
Men shouted.
Glass shattered.
His hand locked around hers.
“Stay down.”
Footsteps thundered through the hallway.
Then silence.
A phone buzzed.
Desmond answered.
Frankie’s voice came through.
“We caught him.”
“Rourke?”
“No.”
A pause.
“It’s Dr. Brennan.”
Sadi stared at Desmond.
His personal physician.
The man who had treated him since the bombing.
May you like
And when Frankie searched Brennan’s pockets, he found something worse than a weapon.
He found the remote detonator from the bomb that had destroyed Desmond’s car.
