Chapter 4 - The Doctor Who Refused to Be Bought
Ruby Brennan had stopped answering unknown calls.
By Saturday morning, her voicemail contained eleven messages from reporters, two from a former colleague, and one from a number she recognized immediately.
Santiago Moretti.
She deleted it without listening.
Then she poured coffee into a chipped ceramic mug and sat beside her apartment window.
Outside, Pilsen was waking beneath a low gray sky.
A delivery truck rattled over broken pavement.
Someone laughed on the sidewalk.
The smell of fresh bread floated up from the bakery downstairs.
Ordinary life continued.
Ruby had once found that comforting.
Now she found it almost insulting.
Three years earlier, she had lived in a cheerful brick house in Oak Park.
Her husband, Daniel, taught history at a public high school.
Their daughter, Ellie, liked dinosaur stickers, strawberry ice cream, and sleeping with the hallway light on.
Ruby had been building a respected clinical practice devoted to children and adults recovering from traumatic communication disorders.
They were not wealthy.
They were happy.
Then came a Saturday afternoon.
A playground.
Gunfire.
And a police officer telling her to sit down before he explained why her family wasn't coming home.
Ruby closed her eyes.
She still remembered the taste of the hospital coffee.
Burnt.
Bitter.
Impossible to swallow.
The knock at her door made her flinch.
She looked through the peephole.
A woman stood outside.
Mid-forties.
Dark coat.
Short black hair.
A canvas bag over one shoulder.
Ruby opened the door.
"Dr. Chen?"
Dr. Evelyn Chen smiled sadly.
"It's been a long time."
Ruby stepped aside.
Evelyn had once been her closest colleague at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
They had published research together.
Traveled to conferences.
Shared terrible vending-machine dinners between late-night consultations.
After Daniel and Ellie died, Ruby had disappeared from nearly everyone she knew.
Evelyn sat at the small kitchen table.
"I received an unusual call yesterday."
Ruby's stomach tightened.
"From whom?"
"A man named Santiago Moretti."
Ruby stared at her.
"He wanted to know whether you would consider helping his sister again."
"Of course he did."
"He also asked whether there was a medical reason Sophia became visibly distressed whenever a particular family adviser entered her room."
Ruby slowly lowered her cup.
"What adviser?"
"Julian Vale."
The name struck something deep in her memory.
Ruby searched for it.
Then she remembered.
Julian Vale had been mentioned in the original police investigation into the playground shooting.
Not as a suspect.
As the businessman who owned the warehouse where the gunmen had allegedly stored their vehicles.
Evelyn watched her face.
"Ruby?"
"Did Santiago tell you why he's asking?"
"No."
Ruby stood and crossed the room.
She opened a drawer beneath the sink.
Inside lay a battered cardboard box.
She had not touched it in months.
She carried it to the table.
Evelyn leaned forward.
"What is that?"
"The things Daniel had with him the day he died."
Ruby opened the box.
A wallet.
A cracked phone.
A blue baseball cap.
A receipt from a neighborhood bookstore.
And a small silver pendant shaped like a star.
Ellie's necklace.
Ruby picked it up carefully.
The chain had broken during the shooting.
She kept meaning to have it repaired.
She never had.
Beneath the pendant lay a folded newspaper clipping.
The headline concerned the death of Vincent Rojas, Santiago Moretti's former underboss.
Police had blamed the playground gunfight on a dispute involving Rojas and a rival crew.
According to the article, Rojas had ordered the attack without Santiago's knowledge.
Rojas was killed three weeks later.
The investigation ended.
Ruby had believed that account for years.
But Daniel had told her something strange that morning.
He had recognized a man near the playground.
A man wearing an expensive gray suit.
Someone he had seen meeting privately with a school-board contractor.
Daniel had thought it suspicious.
Nothing more.
Ruby remembered his last phone message.
She had saved it.
Never listened again.
Until now.
With trembling hands, she retrieved an old digital backup and played the recording.
Daniel's warm voice filled the kitchen.
"Hey, sweetheart, Ellie's negotiating for an extra twenty minutes at the park."
A distant child's voice shouted, "Thirty!"
Daniel laughed.
"Thirty, apparently."
Ruby pressed a hand over her mouth.
Then his tone changed.
"Listen, weird thing. That guy from the community meeting is here. Julian something. He's talking to a cop I recognize."
A burst of wind covered several words.
Then Daniel continued.
"Anyway, probably nothing. Love you."
The message ended.
Ruby sat frozen.
Evelyn leaned closer.
"Did he say Julian?"
Ruby nodded.
"Julian Vale."
Evelyn looked toward the window.
"Ruby, you need to give this to someone."
"The police had Daniel's phone."
"Did they have this backup?"
"No."
"Then it may matter."
Ruby stared at the dead screen.
Three years of grief rearranged themselves into something colder.
A suspicion.
A possibility.
A terrible question.
Had the shooting that killed her family truly been an accident?
Her phone vibrated.
A new message appeared from an unfamiliar number.
It contained a photograph.
Sophia Moretti sitting on her bed.
Alone.
Crying.
Beneath it were six words.
COME BACK AND SHE GETS HURT.
Ruby showed Evelyn.
Neither spoke.
Then another message arrived.
YOUR DAUGHTER WASN'T THE ORIGINAL TARGET.
Ruby's hands began trembling.
She read the message again.
May you like
And suddenly, for the first time in three years, her grief was accompanied by something she had thought was gone forever.
A reason to fight.
