Chapter 2 - The Perimeter
By four in the morning, the second floor of the St. Jude Surgical Center smelled of antiseptic, cold air, and burnt tobacco. The building was officially closed for maintenance, its front doors locked, its security cameras overridden by a closed-circuit feed routed directly to a server in Montreal.
Alice sat on a wooden bench in the private recovery hallway. Her medical bag sat beside her, unopened. Her clothes were ruined—her blue scrub top stained with soot and dried dark blood across the front hem.
Nero lay across her feet, his heavy chin resting on the toe of her left shoe. Every ten minutes, a low tremor would run through the dog's flanks, and Alice would reach down to run her thumb along the base of his skull until his breathing evened out again.
The double doors of OR 3 swung open.
Dr. Jonathan Mercer stepped out, pulling his mask down around his neck. He was sixty, with silver hair and eyes that had seen forty years of high-caliber trauma work in places that didn't exist on public maps.
Danny Falcone stood up instantly from the wall. "Doctor?"
"The round entered below the ninth rib," Mercer said, his voice dry and devoid of emotion. "It nicked the lower lobe of the left lung and shattered the posterior margin of the liver. We retrieved the slug—it was an eight-millimeter subsonic round, clean fragment. We stopped the bleeding, packed the tissue, and closed."
"Is he going to wake up?" Danny asked.
"He’s in a medically induced coma for the next twenty-four hours to let the pulmonary tissue recover," Mercer replied. He turned his head and looked directly at Alice. "Who wrapped the pressure compress at the scene?"
Alice didn't move from the bench. "I did."
"You used a inverted square pack," Mercer noted. "It kept the arterial branch from collapsing while his pressure dropped. If you hadn't held that angle, he would have bled out in the ambulance before we cleared the bay."
"She’s a nurse from the County General triage unit," Danny said.
Mercer raised an eyebrow. "She’s a trauma surgeon’s daughter or she’s spent five years in a field tent. That wasn't taught in a nursing seminar in Rhode Island."
Alice said nothing. She kept her fingers buried in Nero’s fur, her face unreadable.
Before Mercer could say anything further, the heavy fire door at the end of the hall clicked open. Carmine Baldi walked in, flanked by two men in dark coats with heavy pockets. He carried a grey plastic bin containing Alice’s belongings from the mansion—her coat, her canvas tote, and her official identification badge.
"The house is secure," Carmine reported, stopping six feet from Danny. "Elias pulled the hard drives from the west wing before the fire department arrived. The cops think it was a gas main leak."
"It wasn't a gas main," Danny said coldly.
"No," Carmine agreed, his eyes sliding over to Alice. "It was an inside job. Which brings us to the guest."
Carmine set the plastic bin down on a stainless steel cart with a loud thud. He reached inside, pulled out Alice’s driver's license, and held it between two fingers.
"Alice Mary Brennan," Carmine read aloud. "Age twenty-seven. Born in South Boston. Employed at Newport County General for fourteen months. Rent paid three weeks in advance on a two-bedroom apartment near the docks."
He stepped closer, his boots loud on the polished floor.
"Clean record," Carmine continued. "Too clean. No family listed on her insurance forms. No emergency contact. No tax records prior to five years ago."
Nero lifted his head from Alice’s feet, a dark growl starting deep in his chest.
"Easy," Alice murmured, her hand shifting to the dog’s ear. The growl faded, but the dog's body went taut as a steel cable.
"You took off your gloves back at the house," Carmine said, leaning down until he was level with her eyes. "Why?"
"I told you," Alice said, her voice dropping into a quiet, flat rhythm. "The dog was reacting to the blue nitrile. He’d been hit with a chemical agent during the blast. The smell was on the gloves."
"And how did you know that?" Carmine asked. "You're a triage nurse. You don't work with military attack dogs."
"I work in an emergency room two miles from the naval base," Alice replied, looking directly into Carmine's bloodshot eyes. "I see three dog bites a week from handlers who use the wrong gear. If you spend five minutes looking at an animal instead of pointing a gun at it, you notice things."
"Carmine, back off," Danny said, stepping between them.
"No," Carmine snapped, turning his head toward Danny. "We have a hit on the boss, a fire in the main house, and a woman who walked through a killer mastiff like she was stepping onto a bus. She was at the compound twelve minutes after the fire started. Who called her?"
"The municipal dispatch called her," Danny said. "I checked the call log myself. They needed two off-duty trauma nurses for the perimeter casualties. She was on the list."
"She stays in the building," Carmine insisted. "Until Stefano wakes up and decides what to do with her, she doesn't leave this floor. She doesn't use a phone. She doesn't talk to the staff."
Alice stood up slowly. Nero rose with her, his shoulder pressed against her left hip, his black head level with her waist.
"I have a shift at seven AM," Alice said.
"Not anymore," Carmine said with a cold, yellow-toothed smile. "Your supervisor has already been notified that you've taken a leave of absence for a family emergency. We paid her very well to agree."
Alice looked at Carmine for four long seconds. She didn't argue. She didn't raise her voice. She reached down, took her bag from the bench, and moved toward the private room adjacent to the recovery suite.
"Room 204," Danny told her, his voice softer than Carmine’s. "It has a shower, a bed, and a clean set of scrubs. The kitchen downstairs will bring up whatever you need."
Alice paused at the door of Room 204. She looked back at Danny. "He needs his dressing changed at six AM. Don't let your men touch the pack. If they move the drain, he'll bleed into his chest cavity again."
"I'll make sure no one touches it," Danny said.
She stepped into the room, and Nero followed her inside. The heavy door clicked shut behind them, the magnetic lock engaging with a sharp, electronic sound that echoed down the empty corridor.
Inside the room, the blinds were drawn against the dark sky. The air smelled of clean cotton and bleach.
Alice set her bag on the bedside table. She did not sit on the bed. She walked to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and washed her hands under the hot water for two full minutes.
She looked up at the mirror.
Her face was pale, her dark hair pulled back in a messy knot, a faint smear of Stefano Marquetti’s blood dried along her jawline. Her eyes were quiet, steady, and entirely devoid of fear.
Behind her, Nero sat in the doorway of the bathroom, watching her reflection in the glass.
"They're going to find out," Alice whispered to the mirror, her voice so low it barely registered above the sound of the running water. "It’s only a matter of time."
May you like
She turned off the tap, dried her hands on a clean paper towel, and knelt down beside the mastiff. She leaned her forehead against the dog's cool, black snout and closed her eyes.
Outside the window, the first grey light of dawn began to creep over the cold, black surface of the Atlantic.
