Chương 4 - The Eyes in the Dark
By two o’clock on Christmas morning, the basement of the Astor Street mansion had been transformed into an advanced surgical trauma suite.
Money cannot buy happiness, but in moments of life and death, money buys the impossible.
Years ago, after Juniper died waiting for an ambulance that was trapped three miles away in a snowstorm, I had spent four million dollars outfitting the lower level of my estate with its own surgical suite, backup generators, dual oxygen filtration systems, and pharmaceutical reserves that rivaled a mid-sized regional hospital. I had sworn to myself that no one under my roof would ever die simply because help was too far away.
Dr. Chen and two private nurses—women who had signed non-disclosure agreements backed by five-million-dollar retainers and my organization’s lethal reputation—worked over Clara Vance.
They had stabilized her intracranial pressure. The internal bleeding in her abdomen had been cauterized and repaired through a two-hour laparoscopic procedure. Her vitals, displayed across four large wall-mounted screens, were finally holding steady.
She was still in a medically induced coma, her face pale beneath the heavy dressings, but the ventilator was doing only twenty percent of the work now. Her lungs were fighting back.
Upstairs, the house was silent.
I climbed the wide marble staircase, my boots making no sound on the heavy wool runners. I had changed out of my blood-spattered suit into a dark cashmere sweater and dark trousers. The tension of the night’s violence still hummed in my veins like a live wire, but as I reached the second-floor landing, I forced my shoulders to drop. I forced my breathing to slow.
I pushed open the door to Juniper’s old bedroom.
I had not opened this door in three years.
Every month, Mrs. Gable would unlock it, dust the surfaces in the dark, and lock it again, respecting my unspoken order that nothing inside was to be touched. The wallpaper was a soft, pale cream patterned with wild meadow flowers. The white painted bed had a carved headboard shaped like a sunburst.
Tonight, the door was open.
The bedside lamp was on, casting a warm, buttery light across the room.
Norah was asleep in the center of the large bed.
She looked impossibly small beneath the mountain of down duvets and quilted blankets Mrs. Gable had layered over her. Her hair had been washed and brushed dry; it fell across the white pillow in soft, wavy chestnut ribbons. Her breathing was slow, deep, and rhythmic.
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Tucked firmly beneath her chin, guarded by two small arms wrapped around it in a death grip, was Barnaby the rabbit. The ragged pink stitches on his ear caught the light.
Sitting in a wingback armchair by the window, watching the little girl with the watchful, predatory stillness of a guard dog, was Mikhail.
