CHAP 10 — THE DOCTOR
Samuel Ashford had died twelve years earlier.
But dead men left records.
Sofia found malpractice complaints.
Three.
All sealed.
One nurse had accused him of altering medication orders.
Another had claimed he falsified time-of-death records.
The third had disappeared before her complaint reached a hearing.
Her name was Evelyn Price.
Cole found her alive in Oregon.
Sixty-nine years old.
Retired.
Terrified.
She agreed to speak only after learning Adeline was Lucia’s daughter.
The video call lasted eighteen minutes.
Evelyn cried through most of it.
“I remember your mother.”
Adeline could barely speak.
“What happened?”
“She came into the emergency department burned but conscious.”
“Was she going to live?”
“I don’t know. She was injured badly, but she was talking.”
“What did she say?”
“She kept asking us to call Carlo Marchetti.”
Enzo looked away.
Evelyn continued.
“Dr. Ashford arrived. He sent everyone out.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were her nurse.”
“He removed me.”
“Then?”
“When I came back, she was unresponsive.”
Adeline’s face went white.
“Medication?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Please.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Potassium chloride.”
Cole stopped writing.
A large dose could stop the heart.
“Did you report it?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“My supervisor told me I had read the chart incorrectly.”
“And then?”
“My apartment was broken into.”
Silence.
“I left Chicago.”
Adeline pressed both hands against the desk.
After twenty-one years, she finally knew.
Her mother had not died in the fire.
The fire had failed.
So someone finished the job in a hospital room.
Evelyn added one more detail.
“Dr. Ashford wasn’t alone.”
Adeline’s eyes lifted.
“Who was with him?”
“A man from the Marchetti family.”
Enzo went still.
“Who?”
“I never knew his name.”
She described him.
Tall.
Dark hair.
A scar along the jaw.
Enzo’s face changed.
Marco.
Adeline saw it.
“No.”
Enzo did not answer.
“Marco was there?”
“Yes.”
Sofia searched an old photograph.
She showed Evelyn.
“Is this the man?”
Evelyn stared.
Then nodded.
Adeline stood so suddenly the chair fell backward.
“He watched her die.”
“We don’t know that,” Enzo said.
“He was in the room.”
“We know he entered.”
“What more do you need?”
“The truth.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You keep using that word as though it’s always going to save the people you love.”
Enzo did not answer.
Because perhaps she was right.
They found Marco that night.
He had not been hiding from federal agents.
He had been hiding inside an abandoned Marchetti warehouse that Carlo once owned.
When Enzo entered, Marco was sitting at an old desk with a bottle of whiskey.
“You finally figured it out,” Marco said.
“You were in Lucia’s hospital room.”
“Yes.”
Adeline stepped forward.
“Why?”
Marco looked at her.
“To save her.”
She laughed.
“She died.”
“I know.”
“Were you there when Ashford injected her?”
Marco’s eyes filled with something like grief.
“Yes.”
Adeline stopped breathing.
“And you did nothing.”
“I had a gun against my ribs.”
“Whose?”
Marco looked at Enzo.
“Your father’s.”
Silence.
Enzo stared.
Marco continued.
“Carlo was there.”
“No.”
“He arrived ten minutes before I did.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Adeline whispered:
“Carlo killed her?”
“No.”
Marco shook his head.
“Carlo was trying to save her too.”
“Then what happened?”
“Alden had something on him.”
“What?”
Marco looked toward Enzo.
“The thing your father spent the rest of his life trying to bury.”
“What thing?”
Marco reached into a drawer.
He removed a photograph.
Carlo Marchetti stood beside a young Alden Ashford.
Between them was a dead man lying on a warehouse floor.
Marco placed the photograph on the desk.
“Before Alden was Carlo’s enemy,” he said, “they were partners.”
Enzo stared at his father’s younger face.
“Who is the dead man?”
Marco answered.
May you like
“Camilla’s grandfather.”
And the story changed again.
