Chapter 2 - The Doctor Who Never Signed the Report
The lights returned in a wash of cold white. Dante had already moved Elena behind him, one hand on the nightstand where he kept his phone. The intercom clicked again, but this time no voice followed.
“Who was that?” he asked.
Elena stared at the envelope. “I don't know.”
“You know something.”
“I know I was wrong to be silent.”
Dante pressed the security button. “Marco. My room. Now.”
Marco Bellini, the head of Dante's personal protection detail, arrived within a minute. He was broad-shouldered and careful with words, a man Dante had trusted since they were teenagers. Marco reported a temporary electrical fault and a missing technician. The man had entered under Victor's authorization and left through the service gate thirty seconds after the blackout.
“Find him,” Dante said. “And don't tell Victor.”
Marco hesitated. “Victor controls the gate records.”
“Not anymore.”
The next morning Dante had the physician's office searched for his medical file. The results were humiliating. There were prescriptions, appointment reminders, and repeated statements that his neurological symptoms were expected after severe trauma. There was no original operative report for the fragment at the base of his skull.
Dr. Shaw arrived at ten, pale and irritated. He claimed the documents had been transferred from the hospital after the bombing. When Dante asked who had performed the neck procedure, Shaw said he could not remember.
“You've treated me for three years,” Dante said. “And you don't remember the surgeon?”
“I handle ongoing care.”
“Then who handled the surgery?”
Shaw looked toward Victor, standing near the window.
Dante saw it. So did Anna, who had entered to collect the untouched breakfast tray.
“Answer me,” Dante said.
Shaw wiped his forehead. “A specialist. Dr. Miriam Voss.”
Victor said, “She's retired.”
Dante turned to Marco. “Find her.”
Victor's phone vibrated. He checked the screen and left without asking permission.
Anna carried the tray into the corridor. Sophie waited by the kitchen doorway, clutching a drawing of a blue bird. Anna crouched and told her to stay near the cook. Then she found Marco near the staircase.
“Someone threatened my daughter,” she said, showing him the note.
Marco's expression changed. “Where did you get this?”
“Under her pillow.”
“Did anyone see you find it?”
“No.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
He took a photograph but returned the paper. “Don't leave the estate alone. I will arrange someone I trust.”
Anna had learned not to trust reassurances easily. Before coming to the Moretti mansion, she had worked two jobs and lived in an apartment where the heating failed every winter. Her husband, Daniel Miller, had died when Sophie was two. His death had been ruled an accident involving a delivery van on a wet highway. Anna had never believed the investigation was complete, but grief and debt had left her little room to argue.
Now she watched a powerful household behave like frightened people protecting a shared lie.
At noon Dante summoned her to the conservatory. Sunlight moved through the glass roof onto lemon trees and stone benches. He stood with his back to the door, a black shirt open at the throat. He looked exhausted, not threatening.
“I'm sorry I grabbed your daughter's wrist,” he said.
Anna blinked. She had expected dismissal, perhaps a warning. “She wasn't hurt.”
“That isn't what I said.”
He faced her. “I frightened her. I apologize.”
Anna nodded. “I'll tell her.”
“Why did you suggest another doctor?”
“Because everyone looked scared when Sophie spoke. Not surprised. Scared.”
Dante studied her. “You notice a great deal.”
“I notice what keeps my daughter safe.”
He looked away. “Do you think she's safe here?”
Anna considered lying. “No.”
The answer seemed to wound him more than he expected. He sat on the edge of a bench and rubbed his temple.
“Three years ago, I could remember the details of every contract I signed,” he said. “Now I forget conversations while I'm having them. Sometimes I wake up in rooms I don't remember entering. Victor says it's the injury.”
“And what do you say?”
“I say I'm tired of not knowing.”
That afternoon Marco located Dr. Voss in a small clinic two hours north of the city. She had not retired. She had changed her name after leaving the hospital where Dante was treated. Marco arranged a private meeting at a lakeside medical center with independent imaging equipment. Dante insisted Anna accompany them, explaining that Sophie had been the first person to question the scar.
Anna refused at first. “My daughter needs me.”
“Bring her,” Dante said. “Marco will arrange protection.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “If we come, I want you to promise something.”
“What?”
“Whatever they find, you won't take it out on Sophie.”
Dante's expression softened. “She may be the only person who's told me the truth.”
They traveled in two ordinary vehicles instead of the Moretti convoy. Sophie spent the drive describing the metal bug's “little eye” to Marco, who listened as if every word mattered. Dante sat across from Anna in the rear of the second car, holding the envelope his mother had given him.
At the clinic, Dr. Voss examined the photograph and went very still.
“I remember this case,” she said.
Dante leaned forward. “Then tell me what happened.”
“I was called in after your initial surgery. There was a proposed second procedure. I refused to participate.”
“Why?”
“Because the device they wanted to place near your skull was not a piece of shrapnel.”
Anna felt Dante's hand close around the armrest.
Dr. Voss continued. “I reported it. The next morning, my access to the hospital was revoked. Someone threatened my family. I left.”
“What device?” Dante asked.
“I never saw the final implant. I only saw the proposal.”
The imaging technician called them into the next room. Twenty minutes later, a detailed scan appeared on a monitor. A small manufactured object sat just beneath the skin, above the upper neck muscles. It was not embedded in the spine. It had a smooth casing and thin conductive contacts.
Dante stared at it. “Can you remove it?”
“Probably,” Dr. Voss said, “but not before we know what it does and whether it has been altered. This needs a specialist team.”
Sophie pointed at the screen. “That's my bug.”
Dr. Voss magnified the image. Along one edge was a serial marking.
Anna recognized the shape of the letters before she could read them. Daniel had once brought home a company badge with the same symbol: a circle crossed by three parallel lines.
“Where did that come from?” she whispered.
Dr. Voss turned. “Do you know it?”
Anna's mouth went dry. “My husband worked for the company that made that.”
May you like
Dante looked at her.
“Before he died,” Anna said.
