Chapter 7 - THE PATIENT CALLED JOHN REED
Saint Bartholomew Recovery Center denied treating Julian Russo.
Leah obtained a court order tied to the shell-company payments. The clinic then produced records for a patient called John Reed, admitted unconscious six months earlier with head trauma, burns, and no identification.
The intake photograph showed Julian.
Clara stopped breathing.
He had survived.
The records said he woke after twelve days, suffered memory disruption, and left voluntarily with a man identifying himself as his uncle.
Dominic had found him.
The discharge form bore Julian’s signature. Clara studied it. “That isn’t his J.”
Maximilian agreed. Julian formed the letter with a hooked lower stroke, a childhood habit their father failed to correct.
The clinic administrator admitted the patient appeared sedated when transferred. Surveillance files had been erased under a privacy request signed by Russo family counsel.
Leah went still.
The authorization used her digital certificate.
She had never seen it.
Dominic was not merely inside the household systems. He possessed credentials belonging to everyone close to Maximilian.
On the drive back, Clara received a call from an unknown number. A man breathed on the line.
“Clara?”
Her fingers locked around the phone.
“Julian?”
The connection ended.
Tracing placed the call near Boston Harbor. Maximilian mobilized men he believed loyal. Adrian stopped him.
“If Dominic wants you at the harbor, sending an army gives him the confrontation he prepared.”
They went with federal agents instead.
At Pier Seventeen, Clara found a wool coat draped over a railing. It belonged to Julian; she had repaired the inside pocket herself. Within it lay a recent photograph of her asleep in the townhouse.
Someone had been close enough to enter the bedroom.
Maximilian turned toward Leah. “Who knew which room was hers?”
Leah’s eyes filled with anger. “All four of us.”
A cargo crane began moving overhead. A container descended toward the pier, its doors chained shut. Agents forced it open.
Inside was the security man who had attacked Clara at the mansion. He was alive, bound to a chair, and terrified.
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Across his chest, someone had written:
ASK GABLE ABOUT HER SON.
