Chapter 4 - THE PRESCRIPTION AT SAINT CATHERINE’S
Leah did not scream.
She wanted to.
Instead she said:
“Let me hear him.”
Helena Sable laughed softly.
“You sound like your mother.”
“Let me hear Matteo.”
A pause.
Then fabric moved.
A child’s frightened breathing.
“Aunt Leah?”
Her knees almost failed.
“Matteo.”
“I’m okay.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Helena’s voice returned.
“That is enough.”
“Do not touch him.”
“Then do not waste time.”
“Where are you?”
“You will be told.”
“Let him go and I’ll bring the train.”
Nico stood.
Gabriel shook his head.
Do not promise.
Leah ignored both.
Helena said:
“You don’t have the train.”
Leah’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“You think I would take a child before checking his bed?”
Her mind went blank.
Helena continued.
“The train is gone.”
Leah turned toward Gabriel.
He looked equally shocked.
“Where is it?” Helena asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I believe you.”
That was somehow worse.
“Then why take Matteo?”
“Because somebody moved it before I arrived.”
Leah stared at the phone.
“Who?”
“If I knew, I would not need you.”
The call ended.
Leah immediately dialed again.
Blocked.
She grabbed her coat.
Gabriel stepped in front of her.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“They may be waiting.”
“That is where the train was.”
Nico said:
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“You need—”
“My nephew.”
He stopped.
Leah looked at him.
“You almost died an hour ago.”
“Yes.”
“You are not turning this into your rescue mission.”
His face hardened.
Then he nodded.
“Fair.”
Gabriel said:
“I go.”
Leah stared at him.
“You do not get to say ‘family’ now.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He picked up his gun.
“I was going to say I know how Helena’s teams search.”
That was useful.
They drove to Leah’s apartment.
Nico stayed with Miguel and a doctor Gabriel trusted.
Leah did not like leaving the black ring.
She liked carrying it less.
She gave it back to Nico.
“If I don’t come back—”
“You will.”
She glared.
“Do not interrupt practical sentences.”
His mouth almost moved.
She continued.
“If I don’t come back, do not give Helena anything because of me.”
Nico’s expression changed.
“She has Matteo.”
“I know.”
“You think I would trade a child for paper?”
“I think powerful men make terrible decisions when they call them protection.”
That landed.
He nodded once.
“No trade without you.”
Good.
At Leah’s building, the front lock had been forced cleanly.
Not smashed.
Professional.
Mr. Alvarez waited in the hall wearing slippers and holding a baseball bat.
When he saw Leah, he cried.
“I was in the shower.”
She hugged him.
“This is not your fault.”
“They took him.”
“I know.”
“I should have—”
“No.”
She gripped his shoulders.
“They did this.”
Not him.
She had learned something already about where blame belonged.
Inside the apartment, nothing looked ransacked.
That was worse.
Drawers opened carefully.
Closet doors.
Medicine cabinet.
Kitchen tins.
Matteo’s bed stripped.
The red train gone.
But Helena said she did not have it.
Someone else had arrived first.
Gabriel crouched beside the bed.
“Two teams.”
“How do you know?”
He pointed.
One set of shoe prints near the window.
Another near the hall.
“Helena came second.”
“Who came first?”
He looked toward the closet.
“Someone who knew exactly what they wanted.”
Leah stared at the empty pillow where the train usually lay.
A memory surfaced.
That morning.
Matteo holding the train in one hand while Mr. Alvarez buttoned his coat.
No.
Not morning.
Yesterday.
He had taken it to Saint Catherine’s.
His pediatric appointment.
Leah grabbed her phone.
“Pharmacy.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“What?”
“Matteo had the train at the hospital yesterday.”
“Did he bring it home?”
“I thought so.”
She called Mr. Alvarez back into the room.
“Did Matteo bring his train home?”
He frowned.
“The red one?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Leah stopped.
“What?”
“He left it at the pharmacy counter.”
Her heart slammed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I went back.”
“And?”
“The pharmacist said somebody already picked it up.”
Gabriel stood.
“Who?”
Mr. Alvarez looked confused.
“She said family.”
Leah was already moving.
Saint Catherine’s Hospital smelled like disinfectant and burnt coffee.
At two-thirty in the morning, the outpatient pharmacy gate was closed.
Gabriel had a contact.
Leah had anger.
Anger worked faster.
She banged on the staff door until a night pharmacist opened it.
“Ma’am—”
“My nephew left a red wooden train here yesterday.”
The pharmacist blinked.
“Matteo Moreno?”
Leah went still.
“You remember.”
The woman’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“Who took it?”
“I thought you did.”
“No.”
The pharmacist looked worried.
“A woman came.”
“What woman?”
“She had authorization.”
“What authorization?”
The pharmacist disappeared behind the counter.
Returned with a pickup sheet.
MATTEO MORENO — PERSONAL ITEM.
Collected by:
CAMILA MORENO.
Leah stopped breathing.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Who is Camila?”
Leah could not answer for a second.
Then:
“Matteo’s mother.”
“Where is she?”
Leah looked at the signature.
“My sister died four years ago.”
The pharmacy went silent.
The night pharmacist whispered:
“Oh my God.”
Leah stared.
Camila’s signature.
Or someone copying it.
She knew the shape.
Her sister had signed birthday cards that way.
Large C.
Long underline.
The pharmacist pulled surveillance.
A woman in a hooded coat approached the counter.
Face partly hidden.
Same height as Camila.
That meant nothing.
Then she turned.
Leah gripped the counter.
Not Camila.
Older.
Sixties.
She knew her.
Not personally.
From photographs at home.
Her mother’s sister.
Aunt Pilar.
Leah had not seen Pilar since Rosa’s funeral.
“She took it.”
Gabriel looked at the screen.
“You know her?”
“My aunt.”
His face changed.
“Pilar is alive?”
Leah turned.
“What does that mean?”
“She disappeared nine years ago.”
“No.”
“She moved to Florida.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No.”
Another family story.
Another location that was only a sentence.
The pharmacist said:
“There is something else.”
She looked at Leah.
“Matteo’s prescription was picked up too.”
Leah frowned.
“It wasn’t ready.”
“It was paid.”
“How?”
“Cash.”
“How much?”
The woman checked.
“Four hundred eighty-six dollars.”
Leah had thirteen dollars in tips.
She had planned to call assistance again.
She had rehearsed the call on the bus that afternoon: explain the same income, the same rent, the same eight-year-old boy who needed the same medicine he had needed last month.
There was a special humiliation in asking institutions to confirm, repeatedly, that you were still poor enough to deserve help.
Now somebody had paid the full prescription without asking her anything.
Relief should have come first.
Instead, fear did.
Because money had already been used as a map to her family once that night.
And Leah had learned that help offered without explanation could still come with a hidden price.
Someone paid the full prescription.
“Who?”
The pharmacist looked at the pickup signature.
Same woman.
Camila Moreno.
Leah’s anger became confusion.
Aunt Pilar stole the train.
But bought Matteo’s medication.
Not Helena’s pattern.
Not simple.
Gabriel took a photo of the surveillance still.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
Leah asked.
“The coat.”
“What about it?”
“Valenti security issue.”
Leah stared.
“You gave my aunt a coat?”
“No.”
He zoomed in on the sleeve.
Small silver stitching.
V.
“She has access to one of Nico’s safe apartments.”
The room shifted again.
Someone connected to Nico had taken the train before Helena.
Someone in Leah’s family.
A supposedly ordinary aunt.
Gabriel called Nico.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Leah’s blood went cold.
“Call Miguel.”
He did.
Miguel answered.
His voice was panicked.
“They’re gone.”
“What?”
“Nico.”
“Who took him?”
“I don’t know.”
“The doctor?”
“Down.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Security camera?”
“Wiped.”
Leah stared.
The same night.
Matteo taken.
Nico taken again.
Red train gone.
Aunt Pilar wearing Valenti security.
Two family lines suddenly intersecting everywhere.
Then the pharmacist handed Leah the prescription bag.
“There’s a note inside.”
Leah froze.
The medication had been sealed.
Stapled pharmacy bag.
No one should have added anything after pickup.
Unless Pilar did before returning it to the counter.
Leah tore it open.
Beneath Matteo’s medicine sat a brass locker key.
Number 318.
And one folded note.
Leah recognized the handwriting.
Not Camila.
Rosa.
Her mother.
Dead six years.
The note was old.
Yellowed.
LEAH —
IF PILAR GIVES YOU THIS, GABRIEL FAILED TO KEEP YOU OUT OF IT.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Leah kept reading.
THE TRAIN IS NOT THE EVIDENCE.
IT IS THE KEY TO WHERE I HID IT.
DO NOT TAKE IT TO A VALENTI.
Silence.
Leah slowly looked at Gabriel.
He looked hurt.
Then guilty.
“What did Mom know about the Valentis?”
He said nothing.
The note continued.
AND IF NICO VALENTI IS WITH YOU, ASK HIM WHY HIS FATHER PAID FOR CAMILA’S FUNERAL.
Leah’s hands began shaking.
Nico had never met her.
As far as she knew.
Vittorio Valenti had died twenty-one years ago.
Camila died four years ago.
Impossible.
She looked at Gabriel.
“What does this mean?”
He stared at the note.
Then whispered:
“It means that line wasn’t written about Vittorio.”
Leah’s stomach dropped.
“Then whose father?”
May you like
Gabriel looked at her.
“Nico’s father is not the man the newspapers say.”
