CHAP 4 — ROOM 814
The hospital was still operating.
St. Catherine Medical Center had expanded twice since Lucia Croft’s death, swallowing most of the city block around it.
Twenty-one years earlier, Lucia had visited Room 814 three times.
Sofia found the entry inside archived visitor logs.
The patient’s name had been removed.
Not legally redacted.
Removed.
Someone had altered the database.
Adeline stared at the screen.
“Who can erase hospital records?”
“Someone with access,” Sofia said.
“Or someone who owns the people with access,” Enzo added.
St. Catherine’s board chairman was Alden Ashford.
That afternoon, Enzo did something his father never would have done.
He called the FBI.
Not officially.
Not yet.
He contacted Special Agent Nathan Cole, a financial-crimes investigator Enzo had quietly dealt with three years earlier during an extortion case.
Cole hated organized crime.
He also hated corrupt public institutions more.
They met inside an empty restaurant Enzo owned.
Cole listened.
Then laughed once.
“You want me to believe Chicago’s most feared crime boss is worried someone forged his signature?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
“You should. You called me.”
Enzo slid a copy of the trust document across the table.
Cole studied it.
Then the toxicology report.
Then Lucia’s photograph.
His expression gradually changed.
“This is bigger than an attempted poisoning.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Cole leaned back.
“Ashford Municipal Holdings has contracts with four hospitals, six pension funds, and half a dozen city agencies. If money has been moving through those entities for twenty years, you’re not looking at one crime.”
“What am I looking at?”
“A machine.”
Adeline sat across from him.
“My mother found it.”
“Maybe.”
“She died three days later.”
Cole studied her.
“And you came here for justice?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“You came here for proof.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Justice is what people say they want. Proof is what survives court.”
Enzo almost smiled.
He liked Cole slightly more than he wanted to.
By evening, Sofia had found an archived insurance claim connected to Room 814.
The patient had been a man named Benjamin Vale.
A city auditor.
He died two days after Lucia’s final visit.
Cause: stroke.
Three months earlier, Vale had opened an inquiry into Ashford Municipal Holdings.
Adeline stared at the screen.
“My mother was meeting a whistleblower.”
Enzo nodded.
“And he died.”
“So did she.”
“And seven years ago,” Sofia said, “your father died in the same hospital.”
Enzo looked at her.
“St. Catherine?”
“Different wing. Same hospital.”
A pattern had emerged.
Then Gabriel entered.
“We found Conrad Pike.”
“Alive?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Milwaukee.”
Enzo stood.
“Bring him back.”
Cole immediately shook his head.
“No.”
Enzo stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You bring him back, you contaminate everything.”
“He tried to poison me.”
“And if you want this to end in a courtroom instead of a cemetery, let federal agents pick him up.”
Enzo’s jaw tightened.
For most of his life, problems had been solved inside rooms where police were never invited.
This was different.
He nodded.
Cole made the call.
Pike was arrested forty-seven minutes later.
Inside his hotel room, agents found cash, two passports, and a disposable phone.
The phone contained only one saved number.
Sofia traced it.
Not to Alden Ashford.
Not to Camilla.
Not to Marco.
To Marchetti Security.
Gabriel’s department.
Everyone in the room slowly turned toward him.
Gabriel stared at the number.
“That’s impossible.”
Enzo said nothing.
Gabriel pulled out his own phone.
He checked something.
Then his face went pale.
“What?”
“That line belongs to the west gate guard station.”
“Who was working last night?”
Gabriel looked up.
“No one.”
Silence.
“The station was supposed to be empty during the party.”
Adeline remembered Pike disappearing even after the exits were sealed.
“Someone used it.”
Gabriel nodded.
Then another thought struck him.
He grabbed a tablet and opened security footage from the previous night.
The camera overlooking the west gate had gone dark for eleven minutes.
Exactly when Pike disappeared.
But one frame had survived before the feed was cut.
A black sedan sat outside the gate.
Sofia zoomed in.
The license plate was visible.
Enzo recognized it immediately.
May you like
It belonged to his uncle.
Marco Marchetti.
