Chapter 4 - THE DOCTOR WHO BURIED TWO VALESAdrian did not remember crossing the room.
One moment Marcus was sitting at the table.
The next Adrian had him against the concrete wall with one hand around his throat.
Victor moved but stopped when Claire raised her hand.
Marcus clawed at Adrian’s wrist.
“You knew?”
Adrian’s voice cracked.
Not from volume.
From rage.
“You knew for seventeen years?”
“I found out six months ago.”
Adrian shoved him harder.
“You lied.”
“I was scared.”
“My mother was poisoned.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You carried the medication into her house!”
“I believed Carrow!”
Adrian’s fist drew back.
Claire grabbed his forearm.
“Adrian.”
He turned on her.
“Move.”
“No.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with why Evelyn trusted me.”
His eyes burned.
Claire held on.
“If you hit him now, he’ll stop being useful.”
Marcus managed a bitter laugh.
“Comforting.”
Adrian released him.
Marcus collapsed into the chair.
Claire stepped back.
Adrian straightened his jacket as if he had merely interrupted a business meeting.
“Tell me everything.”
Marcus coughed.
“Six months ago, Aunt Evelyn asked me why Northstar Clinical was receiving payments from our transportation division.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Did you investigate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I found records going back seventeen years.”
Adrian stared.
“Northstar didn’t exist seventeen years ago.”
“Not under that name.”
Marcus looked at the laptop.
“It used to be Carrow Medical Consulting.”
Victor swore softly.
Marcus continued.
“Your father paid Carrow through private accounts. After your father died, the payments continued automatically through trusts.”
“Why?”
“I thought they were retainers.”
“For what?”
“Medical confidentiality.”
Adrian laughed without humor.
“My father needed a doctor paid millions of dollars to remain confidential?”
“He treated people connected to the organization.”
Claire frowned.
“Injuries?”
Marcus nodded.
“Gunshots. Stabbings. Men who couldn’t go to hospitals.”
Adrian understood immediately.
Carrow had not simply been a doctor.
He had been part of the infrastructure.
A man trusted with secrets.
Bodies.
Blood.
Death certificates.
“Keep going.”
Marcus rubbed his throat.
“When I started asking questions, Carrow told me your father had been moved from surgery to a private recovery room after the shooting.”
Adrian’s face changed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I saw him.”
“You saw him after.”
“I saw his body.”
Marcus nodded miserably.
“After.”
Adrian turned away.
For seventeen years, he had carried one memory.
His father on a steel table.
A sheet pulled to his chest.
A bullet wound beneath his ribs.
He had never questioned the timing.
Why would he?
His father had been shot four times.
Everyone told him death was inevitable.
Claire watched Adrian face the wall.
She understood grief could reopen in layers.
This was not one death.
It was two.
The father Adrian thought he lost.
And the father he was now learning might have been murdered after surviving.
Victor asked, “Where is Carrow?”
Marcus looked at him.
“He left the funeral before we did.”
Adrian turned.
“Find him.”
Victor pulled out a secure device.
Claire spoke.
“Not his house.”
Victor paused.
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn said he had rooms at Northstar’s private clinic.”
Adrian looked at her.
“She told you that?”
“She said she once woke up somewhere that wasn’t her bedroom.”
Everyone stared at Claire.
“She thought it was a dream at first. White walls. No windows. She heard Carrow arguing with someone.”
“Who?”
“She never saw the other person.”
“What did they say?”
Claire swallowed.
“One sentence stayed with her.”
Adrian waited.
“‘The son is becoming a problem too.’”
Northstar Clinical’s private Chicago facility occupied four floors of an anonymous glass building near the river.
By the time Adrian arrived, Carrow was gone.
But someone had been there recently.
A coffee cup sat warm on his desk.
A wall safe stood open.
Documents had been burned in a metal wastebasket.
Victor’s men found blood on the floor.
Not much.
A few drops.
Then Claire saw the photograph.
It sat half-hidden beneath a desk drawer.
She pulled it out.
A younger Evelyn Vale stood beside Adrian’s father at a charity gala.
Between them stood Dr. Philip Carrow.
And beside Carrow stood another man.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Judge Warren Black.”
Claire looked at him.
“He was at the funeral.”
“He gave the eulogy.”
Margaret, who had insisted on remaining with them despite Adrian’s objections, crossed herself.
Adrian studied the photograph.
Judge Black had known his father since before Adrian was born.
He had presided over cases involving Vale companies.
He had attended Adrian’s confirmation.
He had eaten Christmas dinner at Evelyn’s table.
Adrian’s phone rang.
Victor answered.
His face changed.
“What?”
He listened.
Then looked at Adrian.
“Carrow’s car was found in Grant Park.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Adrian did not react.
“How?”
“Single gunshot.”
“Suicide?”
“No weapon.”
Adrian looked at Marcus.
“Someone is cleaning.”
Marcus whispered, “Yes.”
A sound came from the corridor.
Victor raised his weapon.
Two guards moved.
Then Margaret screamed.
A man in hospital scrubs burst through the side doorway with a knife.
He lunged toward Claire.
Adrian intercepted him.
The blade sliced Adrian’s forearm.
Adrian drove the man into the wall.
Victor disarmed him.
The attacker fought with terrifying desperation.
“Kill me!” he screamed. “You don’t understand!”
Victor pinned him.
Adrian looked at his bleeding arm.
Claire tore fabric from a sterile packet and pressed it against the wound.
“Hold still.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding on Italian wool. You’re clearly dying.”
Adrian looked at her.
Despite everything, the corner of his mouth moved.
Then the attacker spoke.
“She was supposed to die quietly.”
The humor vanished.
Adrian crouched.
“Who?”
The man laughed.
“Your mother.”
Claire’s grip tightened around Adrian’s arm.
“Who ordered it?”
The man stared at him.
“You really don’t know.”
Adrian grabbed his shirt.
“Tell me.”
“Your father built the machine.”
“What machine?”
“The Circle.”
Marcus went pale.
Adrian saw it.
“You’ve heard that name.”
Marcus shook his head too quickly.
Adrian released the attacker.
“Victor.”
Victor hauled Marcus forward.
“What is the Circle?”
Marcus stared at the floor.
“A group.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who?”
“Business leaders. Judges. police. Doctors. People who helped Vale operations survive.”
Adrian’s stomach turned.
“My father created it?”
“No.”
Marcus’s answer came too fast.
Adrian noticed.
“Who did?”
Marcus’s voice became small.
“Your mother.”
Everyone froze.
Adrian stared at him.
“That’s a lie.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
Claire looked confused.
“Evelyn?”
Marcus nodded.
“When the organization was under investigation twenty-five years ago, Aunt Evelyn built relationships with powerful people to protect the legitimate companies and employees. But it changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Your father used it to move money. Influence contracts. Kill investigations.”
Adrian looked toward his mother’s photograph.
“Then why was she investigating it?”
“Because she spent twenty years trying to destroy what she accidentally created.”
The captured attacker laughed again.
“You people still think this is about money.”
Adrian turned.
“What is it about?”
The man smiled through blood.
“Succession.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Adrian stared.
The attacker leaned closer.
“Your mother wasn’t killed because she discovered the Circle.”
He looked at Claire.
“She was killed because she discovered who the Circle intends to replace Adrian with.”
Marcus’s breathing stopped.
Claire looked between the cousins.
Adrian’s voice became ice.
“Who?”
May you like
The man smiled.
“Marcus Vale.”
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