Chapter 4 - The Traitor in White
By dawn, the Atlantic ocean outside the library windows was a dark, churning blue under a sky heavy with gray clouds.
Gabriel was sitting up in bed, supported by extra pillows. A clear IV line fed saline into his right arm, and though he was still visibly weak, the color had returned to his face. The deadly fever that had plagued him for three weeks was entirely gone.
The heavy walnut doors opened, and Marcus walked into the room, shoving a man in front of him.
The man was in his early fifties, wearing a crumpled charcoal suit, his hair disheveled, his eyes wide with blind panic. It was Dr. Anthony Vance, the chief trauma surgeon from St. Jude’s. Two armed men stood behind him, closing the doors silently.
Dr. Vance stumbled, catching himself on the edge of a mahogany table. He looked around the room, his eyes landing on Gabriel sitting up in bed. Vance’s face went completely white.
“G-Gabriel,” Vance stammered, his voice shaking violently. “I... I heard you were in critical condition. Marcus’s men grabbed me from my home—”
“Hello, Anthony,” Gabriel said quietly. His voice was smooth, completely calm, which made it infinitely more terrifying. “You look surprised to see me sitting up.”
Vance swallowed hard, wiping sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand. “Surprised? No! I’m... I’m thrilled! The infection must have finally responded to the antibiotics—”
Marcus stepped forward, dropping the glass jar containing the seven strands of dark, braided thread onto the table beside Vance with a loud clack.
Vance looked down at the jar. His eyes dilated with horror.
“Do you know what those are, Anthony?” Gabriel asked gently.
“I... I don't know what you're talking about,” Vance stammered, stepping back. “That looks like... discarded surgical material—”
“That is industrial nylon thread,” Sadie said from her position near the window, where she sat reviewing the fresh medical supplies that had been delivered an hour earlier. “Coated in marine waterproofing solvent. You used it during the deep muscular closure when Mr. Vale was brought into your trauma bay three weeks ago.”
Vance whirled around, glaring at Sadie. “Who is this girl? This is absurd! I am a chief of surgery! I would never use non-sterile, non-medical—”
Marcus grabbed Vance by the front of his expensive suit jacket, lifting the older man nearly off his feet and slamming him against the heavy library wall. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
“Save the speech, Doctor,” Marcus growled, his face inches from Vance’s. “The thread was analyzed an hour ago by our private lab. The solvent matches an industrial supplier in Newark. We already tracked the purchase order to a shell company registered under your wife’s maiden name.”
Vance let out a choked cry, his knees giving out beneath him. Marcus let him slide down the wall until he was sitting on the hardwood floor, trembling like a leaf in a gale.
“Why, Anthony?” Gabriel asked, leaning forward slightly. “I paid you three hundred thousand dollars a year just to be on call for my men. I bought your daughter her horse farm in Virginia. I paid off your gambling debts at the casino in Atlantic City. Why sell me out?”
Vance buried his face in his hands, weeping openly. “They... they promised me they would kill my daughter, Gabriel! I had no choice!”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened. “Who is 'they'?”
Vance shook his head frantically. “I don't know! I never met them in person! It was a man on the phone. He called himself the Broker. He knew about my debts, he knew about my family. He delivered the thread to my locker at the hospital two hours before you were brought into the emergency room!”
Sadie listened carefully, her mind connecting the dots. “They knew he was going to be shot,” she murmured quietly.
Everyone looked at her.
Sadie stepped forward into the light. “The ambush outside the restaurant wasn't meant to kill Mr. Vale on the spot. It was meant to injure him just enough to send him to St. Jude’s, where Dr. Vance was waiting with the poisoned thread. It was a two-stage execution.”
Gabriel stared at Sadie, a look of profound, dark appreciation shining in his dark eyes.
“A two-stage execution,” Gabriel repeated slowly. He turned his gaze back to Vance on the floor. “The Broker... did he give you an address? A meeting point? How were you supposed to be paid?”
“An... an account in the Cayman Islands,” Vance sobbed. “Half was transferred the night of the surgery. The other half was supposed to be released... after you died.”
Gabriel looked at Marcus. “Take him downstairs to the basement. Keep him comfortable. We aren't finished with him yet.”
Marcus nodded, grabbing Vance by the collar and dragging the weeping surgeon out of the library.
Once the doors were locked again, Gabriel looked at Sadie, who stood quietly near the bed.
“You have a dangerous mind, Sadie Brooks,” Gabriel said softly. “You see patterns where other people just see chaos.”
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“Patterns are safe, Mr. Vale,” Sadie said, looking down at her hands. “It’s the things that don't fit the pattern that kill you.”
“Indeed,” Gabriel murmured, reaching out and offering her a glass of water from the side table. “And right now, you and I are going to find out who ordered that thread.”
