Chapter 7 - The Ghost of St. Ambrose
A suffocating silence hung on the other end of the encrypted satellite connection.
Willa could hear the distant sound of rain falling against corrugated iron and the low hum of industrial machinery.
“Who the hell is this?” the gravelly voice snarled, the sound of a gun slide racking backward audible through the speaker.
“If this is one of Sterling’s hounds playing games with Everett’s private line, I will hunt you down to your grave.”
Willa did not flinch, her voice dropping into an icy, clinical cadence.
“My name is Willa Hayes Kane.”
“I am Everett’s legal wife, married to him yesterday morning in the private chapel of the estate.”
“He is lying three feet away from me in his bed, listening to every word I say.”
She turned the phone toward Everett, holding the microphone to his lips.
Everett gathered the air in his chest, forcing his vocal folds together through sheer force of will.
“Mateo,” Everett rasped, the single word carrying the undeniable timbre of the man who had pulled Mateo Rossi from the gutter a decade ago.
“Code... Black... Obsidian.”
A sharp, ragged intake of breath came over the satellite speaker.
“Boss?” Mateo’s voice cracked, the hardened hitman sounding entirely shattered by the impossible voice.
“My God... they told me your brain was flatlined.”
“Sterling brought in medical boards... they said you were a vegetable.”
“He is not a vegetable, Mateo,” Willa interrupted, taking the phone back and speaking with sharp urgency.
“Dr. Alan Whitfield has been administering continuous infusions of synthetic paralytics to keep him locked inside his own skull.”
“Sterling is forcing me to sign a DNR order tomorrow at two o’clock in the afternoon.”
“He has an extraction team parked outside Oakridge Manor right now, threatening to dump my mother into the snow if I don't comply.”
“Oakridge Manor on 4th Street?” Mateo asked, his professional, cold demeanor returning in a fraction of a second.
“Yes,” Willa replied.
“Room 114.”
“My mother’s name is Ruth Hayes.”
“She has Alzheimer’s and cannot protect herself.”
“Consider it handled,” Mateo said, his tone turning into pure, lethal ice.
“I have four operators within five miles of Lake Forest right now.”
“We have been watching the estate from the perimeter since the wedding announcement hit the morning papers.”
“I will personally breach Oakridge within twenty minutes.”
“Sterling’s extraction team will not leave that parking lot alive if they make a single move toward your mother’s door.”
“Do not kill them yet, Mateo,” Willa said with calculated precision.
“If Sterling’s men go dark too early, he will suspect the play and trigger an immediate termination protocol here at the house before Everett can stand.”
“Disarm them, isolate them, and hold them hostage in their own van until two o’clock tomorrow.”
A low chuckle resonated from the satellite speaker.
“Everett, you picked a general for a wife,” Mateo murmured with deep respect.
“What about you two inside the fortress?”
“Crowley has sixteen armed guards rotating through the east wing.”
“Whitfield arrives in twenty minutes for the midnight injection,” Willa said, looking at the door.
“I am going to handle Whitfield myself.”
“Be outside the bluffs near the boat dock by three in the morning.”
“We will need an extraction corridor if things collapse.”
“Understood,” Mateo answered.
“Stay alive, Mrs. Kane.”
The line went dead.
Willa set the phone back into the hidden compartment, leaving the limestone hearth slightly ajar so she could reach the weapon if necessary.
She turned back to Everett, whose eyes were fixed on her with intense, analytical scrutiny.
“Now,” Willa said, rolling up her sleeves and stepping toward the medicine prep counter, “we deal with the doctor who destroyed my life.”
She opened the sterile supplies drawer.
From her canvas bag, she pulled out a clean, empty glass ampoule she had saved from her old nursing study kit.
She filled it with bacteriostatic normal saline and a microscopic drop of multivitamin concentrate, perfectly matching the faint amber tint of Whitfield’s proprietary neuro-toxin.
She sealed the top with medical wax, mimicking the factory finish of the ampoules Whitfield carried.
“When he enters,” Willa instructed Everett, her voice calm and authoritative, “you must let your body go completely slack.”
“Do not fight him.”
“Do not allow your pulse to spike.”
“If he notices pupillary constriction or autonomic arousal, he will realize the compound is diluted and switch to potassium chloride on the spot.”
Everett looked at her and closed his eyes once, signaling absolute compliance.
At precisely 11:58 PM, the brass door handle turned.
Dr. Alan Whitfield entered the master suite, carrying his stainless steel lockbox beneath his arm.
He did not look pleased.
His tie was loosened, his hair was slightly disheveled, and his expression was sour.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Willa standing upright beside the IV pole, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Why are you not asleep, girl?” Whitfield spat, walking toward the bed.
“I am monitoring my husband’s neurological baseline, Dr. Whitfield,” Willa said, her voice smooth and devoid of hostility.
Whitfield snorted in derision, setting the steel box on the bedside tray.
“You are a disgraced former pill-pusher whose license was revoked for involuntary manslaughter.”
“You do not monitor anything in this room.”
He entered the combination on his lockbox, popping the lid open.
Inside lay the fresh amber ampoules.
Willa took a slow, calculated step toward him, deliberately brushing her hip against the edge of the rolling tray.
The stainless steel tray rattled violently, sending a cup of disinfectant water crashing to the hardwood floor with a loud, ringing splash.
“Clumsy fool!” Whitfield snapped, flinching away from the splashing water to protect his expensive suede shoes.
In that split second of distraction, Willa’s hand moved with the blinding speed of a seasoned trauma nurse.
Her fingers dipped into the open lockbox, palming the active neuro-toxin ampoule and dropping the amber-tinted saline decoy into the foam slot.
She slipped the real poison into the deep pocket of her oversized sweater.
Whitfield turned back, his face red with irritation, glaring at the puddle on the floor.
“One more incident like this and I will have Crowley drag you down to the cellar,” he hissed.
He grabbed the decoy ampoule—the one filled with harmless saline—and snapped the neck.
He drew the fluid into his syringe, swabbed Everett’s central line port, and depressed the plunger.
Everett lay beneath the sheets, every muscle relaxed, his breathing artificially shallow, his mind laughing in the dark.
Whitfield pulled the needle out, tossing the empty glass shell into his sharps container.
He leaned over Everett, shining his penlight into the patient's eyes.
Everett allowed his eyelids to remain heavy, forcing his pupils to remain neutral by focusing on an imaginary point miles beyond the ceiling.
Whitfield checked the monitor.
The pulse remained steady at fifty beats per minute, artificially maintained by the saline dilution Willa had established hours earlier.
“Good,” Whitfield muttered to himself, packing his lockbox shut.
“His peripheral tone is declining right on schedule.”
He turned to Willa, pointing an arrogant, manicured finger at her face.
“Tomorrow afternoon, this farce ends.”
“Do not be late for the probate signing, or you will find yourself in the morgue alongside him.”
Whitfield turned, picked up his satchel, and swept out of the room, locking the door from the outside.
The heavy lock clicked into place.
Willa waited for the sound of his footsteps to fade down the marble corridor before releasing the breath she had been holding for ten minutes.
She pulled the stolen ampoule from her sweater pocket and held it up to the pale light of the telemetry screen.
It was the smoking gun.
The proprietary formulation with the exact chemical fingerprint that had murdered Harold Fisk and framed her three years ago.
She looked over at Everett.
Everett had opened both eyes fully.
May you like
In the dim green glow of the monitors, a terrifying, savage grin stretched across the face of the Chicago kingpin.
The trap was set, and the executioner had just injected himself with water.
