Chapter 2 - Three Bullets
Carter saw her coming.
For the rest of his life, he would remember that part most clearly.
Not the gun.
Not the screaming.
Not the window exploding behind him.
Cynthia.
Running directly toward him.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
She hit him hard enough to knock him sideways.
The first bullet struck Cynthia beneath her right collarbone.
Her body jerked.
Carter caught her instinctively, confusion flashing across his face before the second shot hit her lower in the abdomen.
She made a small sound.
Not a scream.
Almost a breath.
Then came the third.
Cynthia collapsed against him.
For one impossible second, the most feared man in half of Boston simply stared at the blood spreading across blue fabric.
Then something inside Carter Moretti changed.
“DOWN!”
His voice shook the lobby.
Two men emerged from the examination corridor. They were not patients. Cynthia understood that instantly despite the roaring in her ears.
Carter’s security.
One dragged Carter and Cynthia behind the reception counter while the other returned fire toward the shattered entrance.
Cynthia tried to breathe.
Nothing seemed to happen.
“Look at me.”
Carter was kneeling over her.
His hands were bloody.
She had never seen him frightened during thirty-six appointments.
She had watched doctors insert needles into his arm. She had watched him receive test results. Once, a fire alarm had sent the entire clinic outside, and Carter had calmly finished his coffee while everyone else complained.
Now his face had lost all color.
“Cynthia.”
“My patients…”
“They’re covered.”
“Cassie?”
“I’ll find her.”
Cynthia coughed.
Carter’s hand immediately moved behind her head.
“Don’t talk.”
She almost laughed.
“You’re… very bossy.”
Something broke behind his eyes.
“Save your strength.”
Cynthia heard another burst of gunfire.
Then silence.
Footsteps thundered toward them.
Carter turned so violently that the approaching man stopped.
“Boss, it’s Luca.”
Cynthia blinked.
Boss?
The man called Luca was broad-shouldered, wearing a gray suit, and carrying a handgun with the practiced ease of someone who had held one many times before.
“The shooters are down or running. Police are two minutes out.”
“Get trauma here.”
“They’re already coming.”
Carter looked back at Cynthia.
Her eyelids were growing heavy.
“No.”
He touched her cheek.
“Stay awake.”
“I’m tired.”
“You can sleep later.”
She looked at the blood on his shirt.
“Are you hurt?”
The question seemed to stun him.
Three bullets had entered her body because they had been intended for him, and she was asking whether he was hurt.
“No.”
“Good.”
Her eyes closed.
“Cynthia!”
Carter slapped his palm against the floor.
“CYNTHIA!”
Paramedics reached them seconds later.
Everything became movement.
Scissors cut through blue scrubs.
Oxygen.
Pressure dressings.
A stretcher.
Someone called out numbers.
Someone else shouted that her blood pressure was dropping.
Carter followed.
A paramedic blocked him.
“You can’t come.”
Carter stared at him.
Luca quietly touched Carter’s shoulder.
“Let them work.”
The ambulance doors slammed.
For three seconds Carter stood completely motionless.
Then he turned.
“Who did this?”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“We caught one alive.”
“Name?”
“He won’t give one.”
Carter looked toward the blood covering the lobby floor.
“Then find out.”
Police flooded through the doors.
Hospital administrators appeared almost immediately.
And then Dr. Preston Vance came running from the east corridor.
“What happened?”
Carter slowly looked at him.
Vance recognized him.
Not as the quiet cardiology patient from room four.
As Carter Moretti.
His face changed.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Carter looked down at the handwritten medication chart lying near the overturned cart.
Cynthia’s name was written across the top.
He remembered that morning.
Vance humiliating her.
The residents watching.
Cynthia swallowing every cruel word without defending herself.
Carter had been standing around the corner.
He had heard everything.
At the time, he had wondered why she remained silent.
Now he knew.
“She has a brother,” Carter said.
Vance blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Sixteen. Dialysis.”
“How do you—”
“Where is he?”
Vance didn’t know.
Cassie did.
She emerged from behind the nurses’ station with a cut on her forehead.
“Ethan’s at school.”
Carter looked at her.
“He needs to know before this reaches television.”
Cassie studied him.
“And who exactly are you to Cynthia?”
Thirty-six visits.
Thirty-six mornings when she had checked his blood pressure and never asked why armed men waited downstairs.
Thirty-six times she had treated him like a patient instead of a name.
Thirty-six chances he had wasted.
Carter looked toward the ambulance entrance.
“Nobody.”
The word tasted wrong.
Then his phone rang.
Luca answered his own at the same moment.
Their eyes met.
Something was happening.
“What?” Carter asked.
Luca listened.
His expression changed.
“The shooter talked.”
“Who sent them?”
“He gave us a name.”
Carter waited.
Luca stepped closer.
“Preston Vance.”
Silence swallowed the lobby.
May you like
Carter slowly turned.
But Dr. Vance was gone.
