Chapter 1 - The Dog Who Chose Her
By the time Alice Brennan walked through the broken doors of the Marquetti mansion, everyone inside had already decided Stefano Marquetti was going to die.
Nobody said it aloud.
They didn't need to.
The ruined great hall told the story.
Rain blew through windows shattered during the explosion in the west wing. Smoke still drifted beneath the high ceiling. Men in expensive suits stood against marble columns with soot on their faces and blood on their cuffs. Paramedics hovered beside an unused stretcher. Four physicians had gathered near the entrance, arguing in low voices while staring toward the center of the room.
And in the middle of the marble floor lay one of the most feared men in New England.
Stefano Marquetti.
His white shirt had turned dark beneath his ribs.
His face had lost almost all its color.
His breaths came shallow and irregular.
But Stefano wasn't the reason nobody moved.
Nero was.
The enormous black Cane Corso stood over his unconscious owner like a living wall. His paws were planted beside Stefano's shoulders, his thick chain collar hanging against his chest. Every time someone took so much as half a step closer, the dog lowered his head.
Nobody needed to hear him growl twice.
One catch pole was bent.
Another lay broken near the stairs.
A veterinarian had been called and then ordered to remain outside because nobody could get close enough to sedate the animal without risking Stefano's life.
Alice had been sent by an emergency staffing service to carry supplies.
That was all.
She was twenty-seven, behind on rent, exhausted from fourteen hours at a hospital across town, and wearing navy-blue scrubs that smelled faintly of antiseptic and vending-machine coffee.
She had no reason to become part of Stefano Marquetti's story.
Then she looked at the dog.
Everyone else saw aggression.
Alice saw terror.
"Ma'am," a man's voice warned behind her. "Do not go any closer."
Alice ignored him.
She removed her medical gloves.
Then she unclipped her badge and placed it on the floor.
Someone swore.
"What is she doing?"
Alice lowered herself slowly onto one knee thirteen feet from Nero.
Nothing in her hands.
Nothing hidden behind her back.
No medical instrument.
No restraint.
She placed her palms upward on her thighs.
And waited.
A silver-haired man named Carmine Baldi moved forward.
"This is ridiculous. Get her away from him."
Danny Falcone, Stefano's head of security, stopped him with one hand.
"Don't."
Carmine glared.
"He's bleeding out."
"I know."
"Then do something."
Danny never took his eyes off Nero.
"I am."
Alice barely heard them.
She watched the dog's breathing.
Too fast.
His ears flicked toward every metallic sound.
His eyes moved whenever a blue-gloved hand appeared.
The pattern became obvious.
Every person who had approached Stefano had carried something.
A needle.
A pole.
A medical bag.
A piece of equipment.
Nero didn't understand rescue.
He understood that strangers kept bringing objects toward his injured master.
Alice lowered her eyes.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then sixty.
Nero shifted.
The room went silent.
He took one step toward her.
Alice didn't move.
Another.
His nails clicked against marble.
Behind her, someone whispered, "Jesus."
Nero stopped inches from Alice.
His head was almost level with her chest.
Alice could smell smoke and rain trapped in his coat.
A narrow scar ran along his muzzle.
His eyes weren't wild.
They were searching.
"It's okay," she whispered. "You decide."
Nero stared at her.
Then lowered his head.
Slowly, deliberately, he pressed the side of his face against Alice's bare palm.
Her breath caught.
She didn't pet him.
Didn't praise him.
Didn't make the mistake of turning the moment into excitement.
She simply curled her fingers gently against his cheek.
"I'm here."
Three seconds later, Nero stepped aside.
Every person in the room seemed to inhale at once.
Alice moved.
She crossed the marble and dropped beside Stefano.
"Stretcher."
Nobody responded.
Alice looked over her shoulder.
"Now."
Men who had ignored police officers and intimidated surgeons suddenly obeyed a nurse whose bank account had thirty-eight dollars in it.
Two doctors approached.
"Slowly," Alice ordered. "From the left. Let the dog see your hands."
Nero watched.
He didn't interfere.
Alice pressed against the wound beneath Stefano's ribs and found his pulse.
Fast.
Weak.
Dangerously weak.
"Pressure?"
"Seventy-nine systolic."
"Large-bore IV. Fluids ready. We move him on three."
Stefano's eyelids fluttered.
For half a second, his dark eyes opened.
They found Alice.
He looked confused.
Then Nero.
Then Alice again.
His lips moved.
She leaned closer.
"What?"
"Nero…"
"He's fine."
Stefano seemed not to understand.
Alice pressed harder against the wound.
"Your dog is fine. You, however, are being extremely inconvenient."
For the briefest instant, Stefano's mouth almost formed a smile.
Then he lost consciousness.
At 1:58 a.m., the ambulance doors closed.
Danny remained behind because somebody had to hold Nero while the vehicle pulled away.
Alice stayed with Stefano.
So did Dr. Leonard Voss.
Voss had been Stefano's personal physician for nearly twenty years.
He sat across from Alice wearing a perfectly tailored suit beneath his medical coat, as if even emergencies respected his schedule.
"Pressure?"
"Eighty-six over fifty-two," Alice said.
Hollis, the paramedic, checked again.
"Eighty-four now."
Stefano's pulse raced beneath Alice's fingers.
Voss opened a leather case.
Something about the motion caught Alice's attention.
He removed a vial.
Then a syringe.
"What are you giving him?"
"Sedation."
Alice looked at Stefano.
"He's barely conscious."
"He may become agitated before surgery."
Voss drew the medication.
Alice glanced at the dosage.
Her stomach tightened.
"Doctor."
Voss didn't look up.
"I know what I'm doing."
"His pressure is dropping."
"I am aware."
"Then why are you giving him that?"
Voss moved the syringe toward the IV port.
Alice grabbed his wrist.
The ambulance became silent except for the siren.
Voss stared at her.
"Remove your hand."
"No."
Hollis suddenly became fascinated by a monitor.
Voss's voice hardened.
"I have been treating this man since you were a child."
"And right now he's seventy-eight over forty-six."
"You don't know his medical history."
"I know enough to know that dose could put him into cardiac arrest."
"Miss Brennan—"
"Don't."
Something changed in Voss's eyes.
Not embarrassment.
Not professional irritation.
Fear.
It lasted only a second.
But Alice saw it.
"Why that drug?" she asked quietly.
Voss pulled his wrist away.
"He requires sedation."
"Not at this pressure."
Voss placed the syringe down.
"Fine."
Alice immediately took out her phone.
Voss frowned.
"What are you doing?"
"Documenting."
She photographed the vial.
The syringe.
The dosage.
The monitor.
She recorded Stefano's pressure, Voss's name, the time and her refusal.
No accusation.
Only facts.
Voss watched her.
"I hope you understand the people you're involving yourself with."
Alice looked up.
"I'm involving myself with a patient."
"You think it's that simple?"
"It should be."
Voss gave a strange, tired laugh.
"Nothing around Stefano Marquetti is simple."
At 2:31 a.m., operating-room doors swallowed Stefano.
Alice stood in the hallway afterward with dried blood on her scrubs and a headache behind both eyes.
She should have left.
Instead, she sat in a plastic chair.
At 4:12 a.m., Danny arrived with Nero.
The hospital objected.
Danny apparently solved the objection.
Nero walked directly past everyone and stopped in front of Alice.
Then sat.
Danny studied her.
"That's twice."
Alice rubbed her eyes.
"What is?"
"He chose you twice."
"He likes exhausted nurses."
"Nero doesn't like anybody."
"Healthy personality."
Danny almost smiled.
Carmine arrived twenty minutes later.
Unlike Danny, he looked immaculate now.
Fresh suit.
Clean shirt.
Silver hair combed neatly back.
"How is Stefano?"
"Still operating," Danny said.
Carmine looked toward Alice.
"This the nurse?"
Alice stood.
"The nurse has a name."
Carmine's eyes sharpened.
"Alice Brennan."
The fact that he knew it made her uncomfortable.
"Thank you for what you did," he said. "Your assistance is no longer required."
Alice picked up her bag.
"Good."
She took two steps.
Then stopped.
She remembered the vial.
There had been something strange about it.
At the time she couldn't place it.
Now she could.
She pulled out her phone and enlarged the photograph.
Hospital medication labels used machine-printed lot information.
The vial Voss had used looked legitimate.
Almost.
But one number was crooked.
Not printed.
Overlaid.
Alice enlarged it again.
A second label had been placed over the original.
Her heartbeat accelerated.
Danny noticed.
"What?"
Alice looked at him.
"Where did Dr. Voss get the medication he tried to give Stefano?"
Danny's expression changed.
"Why?"
"Because I think somebody changed the label."
Carmine stepped closer.
"That's a serious accusation."
"I didn't accuse anyone."
Alice held up her phone.
"I said the label was changed."
Danny took the device.
His face hardened.
Carmine stared at the photograph.
Nobody spoke.
Then the operating-room doors opened.
A surgeon approached.
"Mr. Marquetti survived the procedure."
Danny closed his eyes briefly.
"But," the surgeon continued, "something doesn't make sense."
Alice felt the skin on her arms tighten.
"What?"
The surgeon lowered his voice.
"The wound wasn't the only reason his blood pressure collapsed."
Carmine went very still.
The surgeon looked from Danny to Alice.
"There was another drug already in his bloodstream."
Alice's gaze moved slowly toward the photograph on her phone.
Voss hadn't been about to give Stefano the first dangerous dose.
Someone had gotten to him before the ambulance ever arrived.
And whoever had done it had been close enough to Stefano Marquetti to poison him inside his own home.
May you like
But the most frightening truth was still waiting upstairs: the drug in Stefano's blood could only have come from one of three people he trusted completely.
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