Chapter 8 - Someone Cut the Power to the ICU
The blue folder should have ended everything.
It didn't.
Evidence is not magic.
It has to survive long enough to reach court.
Copies went to state police, federal investigators and an assistant U.S. attorney.
Victor disappeared.
Sloan disappeared.
Dr. Reeves lawyered up and claimed Dana fabricated everything.
The hospital board announced an “independent review,” which was corporate language for hoping the public became interested in something else.
Then somebody tried to kill Mia again.
This time they didn't enter her room.
They attacked the building.
At 2:18 a.m., ICU power failed.
Not a normal outage.
Three separate systems shut down.
Main.
Emergency generator.
Battery monitoring network.
Someone had planned it.
I was still technically fired.
I was also in Mia's room because nobody had succeeded in keeping me away.
The ventilator alarm changed.
Dr. Shaw moved immediately.
Staff switched critical equipment to portable battery devices.
I looked through the windows.
The hallway was dark.
Too dark.
Then I smelled smoke.
Electrical.
“Fire?”
A technician shouted from the corridor.
“Generator room!”
That was the distraction.
I knew it instantly.
If you wanted to kill one protected patient in an ICU, you created a crisis affecting everyone.
Staff spread thin.
Security ran toward fire.
Then you walked in.
I turned toward Mia's door.
A man in respiratory scrubs approached.
Mask.
Cap.
Badge.
Wrong shoes.
Black leather.
Nobody in respiratory wore polished dress shoes at two in the morning.
I slammed the door shut.
He accelerated.
“Lock it!”
Dr. Shaw hit the emergency lock.
The man reached the door and pulled.
Then stepped back.
He produced a handgun.
Mia screamed.
I moved her bed away from the glass.
One shot cracked through the door window.
Glass fractured.
Dr. Shaw dragged a cabinet in front of the opening.
I called Torres.
No signal.
Hospital network down.
The man reached through broken glass.
Then disappeared.
A second later, someone hit him from behind.
Gabriel.
Of course.
The two men crashed against the wall.
Gabriel's bodyguard joined him.
The attacker escaped into the stairwell after dropping the gun.
Security locked floors.
Police arrived.
The fire in the generator room was contained.
Gabriel entered Mia's room with blood running from his knuckles.
I stared at him.
“Why are you here?”
He looked almost offended.
“You called me.”
“I did not.”
He held up his phone.
A text from my number:
MIA IS IN DANGER. COME NOW.
I hadn't sent it.
Another lure.
Someone wanted Gabriel at the hospital during the attack.
Why?
Then gunfire echoed from downstairs.
Gabriel froze.
His phone rang.
One of his men.
“Boss, it's Nico.”
His face changed.
Nico had been recovering in a private room on another floor.
We ran.
His room was empty.
Blood on the floor.
Not much.
Enough.
A nurse had seen two men moving him in a wheelchair.
They showed credentials.
Fake.
Again.
Gabriel stared at the empty bed.
This time, there was no note.
No demand.
No phone call.
Just absence.
I watched him struggle not to lose control.
“Think.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“Victor wants you angry.”
“My son is gone.”
“I know.”
“He could be dying.”
“I know.”
“Do not tell me to stay calm.”
“I’m telling you to think.”
His eyes burned.
For a second, I saw the man people whispered about.
Then he breathed once.
Twice.
“Why bring me here?”
“Because while you're here, something else is exposed.”
He understood.
“Home.”
“No.”
“Office?”
“No.”
Then I remembered Dana's files.
The originals had been moved to a federal evidence room.
But one thing remained under Moretti control.
Sofia's cassette.
Gabriel had stored it at his private residence.
Why would Victor care about an old recording?
Unless there was more on the tape.
Gabriel called security.
No answer.
We drove to his house with police.
Front gate open.
Guard station empty.
Inside, nothing looked disturbed.
The cassette recorder sat where he left it.
But the tape was gone.
On the table lay Nico's hospital bracelet.
Gabriel picked it up.
His hands shook.
Then his phone rang.
Victor.
“Now we can speak without your little nurse recording everything.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
Victor continued.
“Sofia made two tapes.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“One named me.”
Victor laughed softly.
“The other named your father.”
Gabriel went still.
His father, Carlo Moretti, had died ten years earlier.
“What did he do?”
“You've spent twelve years thinking I killed Sofia because she discovered my business.”
Victor paused.
“That isn't why she died.”
“What was on the second tape?”
“Your father ordered the hospital network built.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Victor continued.
“He ordered Sofia silenced too.”
No one spoke.
Then Nico's voice came faintly through the phone.
“Dad!”
A blow.
Silence.
Victor said:
“Bring me Dana's evidence.”
Gabriel looked toward me.
“Where?”
Victor gave an address.
Then ended the call.
Gabriel reached for his gun.
I grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
He stared at me.
“Move.”
“I won't.”
“My son—”
“Needs you to stop behaving predictably.”
He pulled his hand free.
Not violently.
Barely controlled.
“You don't understand.”
I stepped closer.
“I understand exactly.”
His face was inches from mine.
“If you go where Victor tells you, angry and alone, Nico loses both parents.”
That hit.
Gabriel looked away.
I softened my voice.
“Let me help.”
His eyes returned to mine.
Something shifted.
Not trust exactly.
Something more dangerous.
Need.
He nodded once.
May you like
And for the first time, Gabriel Moretti did not give the order.
He let me make the plan.
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