The Entity Game: An Aurora Donati Novel

by Lisa Shearin

  He had to see his victims to kill them.

  Where were Simmons’s guards?

  I got the key in the lock, shoved it open, and we dragged him the rest of the way inside.

  “Gerald!”

  No answer.

  I rolled Grandad on his back. His eyes were fixed and staring, his mouth open.

  He wasn’t breathing.

  No. Please, dear God, no.

  He wasn’t going to die. I wouldn’t let him.

  I loosened his tie and fumbled with his shirt buttons.

  Rees and I didn’t need words, we just went to work. Rees on chest compressions, me on mouth-to-mouth.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” he said as his hands kept up a sharp rhythm on Grandad’s breastbone. “Berta’s looking for him. Agents and police are coming.”

  I kept going, tilting Grandad’s head back, giving him the air he couldn’t take in for himself.

  “Miss Aurora!” Gerald came running from the back of the house.

  I came up for more air. “Get a blanket!”

  He was back in moments with the wool tartan throw Grandad had bought on his most recent trip to Scotland. He’d said it was for when he finally decided to start acting his age.

  He still wasn’t breathing.

  “Anything?” I was grabbing all the air I could get to give to him.

  In response, Rees grimly kept going.

  We continued working in silence. My tears flowed from my eyes down Grandad’s face as I kept breathing for him. Gerald knelt by his side, fingers on his wrist, waiting for the pulse I prayed would restart.

  Pablo began rubbing up against both Grandad and me as I did mouth-to-mouth, his loud purrs vibrating against our faces. In his own way, Pablo was trying to help.

  Then Berta was there with the EMTs and they took over.

  Rees pulled me back out of the way as they worked on him, getting an oxygen mask in place and sticking two electrode pads to his too-pale chest. The first shock came a second later.

  Nothing.

  And another shock.

  “I’ve got a pulse,” an EMT said.

  The most beautiful words I’d ever heard followed by the most beautiful sound.

  The steady beep of Grandad’s heart on the monitor.

  I sent up a prayer of thankfulness.

  “I’m going with him,” I said, daring anyone to tell me otherwise.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Rees promised.

  Outside, the street was filled with blue and red flashing lights. FBI and police were everywhere. My throat tightened in gratitude. If they hadn’t caught him by now, though, their chance was gone, along with the assassin who had made the mistake of coming after my granddaddy.

  During the ambulance trip to the hospital, I listened to the heart monitor beeping loud and strong while I held one of Grandad’s hands in both of mine, feeling it get warmer, and talked to him nonstop.

  As we pulled into the hospital emergency entrance, my heart skipped a beat of its own as his hand squeezed mine.

  CHAPTER 25

  I’d never been good at waiting, and my impatience and fear were magnified times a thousand at the thought of emergency room doctors working on someone I loved.

  I was beyond grateful that Georgetown University Hospital was less than two miles away from the town house.

  I went to a corner of the waiting room where I could see through the little window near the top of the swinging double doors that gave me a view down the hall where the trauma bays were. They’d taken Grandad through the doors, halfway down the hall and to the left. I’d watched entirely too many scrubs-clad people run into that bay.

  “Rory.”

  It was Rees, but I refused to take my eyes off that window. It was the only way for me to know what was happening, my only connection to Grandad.

  “You need to sit down and rest.” Rees’s voice was soft but firm. “You won’t do him any good if—”

  “I’m not moving from this spot. Not until I know.”

  “We were there when it happened and immediately started resuscitation. You did all you—”

  “Yes, we were there when it happened, and we couldn’t do a damned thing to stop it. That’s what was in his mind when he killed Dalton. He can kill anyone at any time and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him.”

  “A bullet through his head would do it.”

  Samuel Rees was always perfectly in control, an island of calm professionalism regardless of any chaos erupting around him. He was a champion of the law. He wasn’t talking about the rule of law or process of justice now, just putting down a predator that needed it.

  Rees felt responsible, too.

  “It’s not your fault, either,” I told him. “I don’t want to think what would have happened if you hadn’t been there to help us. Thank you.” I clenched my teeth against the tears that tried to start. I was through crying. I knew what I wanted to do, and it had nothing to do with the law. “Grandad wanted to help. He came in with his eyes open.”

  And briefly died the same way.

  “He feels threatened by Ambrose and you,” Rees said. “Until this is over, both of you are in danger. He could be anywhere, and we have no idea what he looks like. You and Ambrose have done enough, more than enough. We have leads now. I’ve arranged for guards to be here with both of you. Stay here with him. You’ll be safe.”

  Then I remembered. Guards. Simmons’s guards.

  “Our security company left two guards at the house.” Fear for Grandad turned to rage. “Where the hell were they?”

  “Dead.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “They’re dead. They were found in the backyard, their bodies hidden behind the garden shed.”

  “How?” I asked, but as a chill spread through me, I knew.

  “There were no wounds or outward signs of violence,” Rees said.

  I sank onto the chair behind me. “He lured them back there and killed them both,” I whispered, “then simply waited for us to come home. He could’ve just as easily killed Gerald the same way.” I put a hand to my forehead, trying to think. “I need to call my parents. They need to know, but I don’t want them here, and if I tell them, they’ll come. I can’t put them in danger.”

  “If you decide to call them, I’ll send agents to the airport to bring them here.”

  I turned and looked back through the window. I needed to be here. For now. As soon as I knew Grandad was going to live and that he would be safe, I was going to do everything in my power and beyond to find the thing that had done this to him.

  A doctor emerged from the trauma bay, walking down the hall toward the waiting room doors, her expression grim.

  I froze.

  She pushed the door open and saw me. “Ms. Donati? Aurora Donati?”

  I quickly stood. “Yes. I’m his granddaughter.”

  “I’m Dr. Deborah Beck, a cardiologist on staff here.” She put out her hand to shake. It was warm and strong. She was confident in her abilities. No arrogance, just hard work, determination, and compassion in spades. “Your grandfather is in critical condition. His vital signs are stable. I understand you were there when the cardiac arrest occurred.”

  “Yes.” I indicated Rees. “Along with FBI Special Agent Samuel Rees. He’s a friend of the family.”

  Dr. Beck shook his hand. “How long until you started CPR?”

  “Almost immediately,” I told her. “Within twenty seconds.” I glanced at Rees for confirmation. He nodded once. I indicated Rees. “Chest.” Then myself. “Mouth.”

  Grim gave way to a slight smile. “You two make a good team. If you had not acted so quickly, he would no longer be with us.”

  I knew that only too well. The killer had caught his other victims alone. Grandad hadn’t been alone. He wasn’t going to be alone again.

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  “We’re going to move Mr. Donati t
o our ICCU, that’s Intensive Coronary Care Unit. There are no guarantees, especially considering his age, but his heart is in excellent condition and he did regain consciousness briefly and asked for you by name. I told him you were here. For some reason, he mistook that to mean you were being treated here as well. I assured him that you were fine and in the waiting room. This calmed him.”

  He was worried about me.

  I couldn’t tell her that I could easily have ended up in the trauma bay next to his, and that was what Grandad had been afraid of. But if we’d both been attacked like Julian and Alan, caught alone and unaware, we would have been downstairs or wherever the hospital morgue was.

  “Does he have a history of heart problems or disease?” Dr. Beck asked.

  “No, and there’s none in our family.”

  “That will help. The next twenty-four hours will be critical. But if he remains stable, he has a good chance of survival.”

  She hadn’t said recovery, merely survival. For now, I’d take what I could get.

  “When can I see him?”

  “He’s being taken up to ICCU now. Let us get him settled and I’ll send one of the nurses down to get you. I believe it will help him to see you. I’m sorry, Special Agent Rees, but for now, visits need to be kept short and limited to immediate family.”

  “I understand, Dr. Beck. However, Mr. Donati is presently under FBI protection, and I will need to not only post guards, but will also require the names and hospital photo IDs of everyone who will be authorized to enter his room.”

  She only hesitated a moment before saying, “Agreed.”

  In Washington, Rees’s conditions probably weren’t anything new.

  “Until that can be done,” Rees added, “we need to be with him. Now. The Donatis are private investigators consulting with the FBI on a case.”

  I pulled out my FBI consultant ID to show her.

  “As a result of his involvement,” he continued, “Mr. Donati’s life is in danger. He is presently unable to protect himself. For now, Ms. Donati and I are that protection.”

  Dr. Beck looked from my ID to Rees’s unwavering stare.

  “Follow me.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Rees and I waited outside Grandad’s ICCU room while he was transferred to the bed and connected to the machines that would keep the staff apprised of his every breath and heartbeat and the status of everything in between.

  Grandad was tall and lean, but it was all muscle and it always had been. He was eighty-two, but he could give men twenty and even thirty years younger a run for their money.

  Now, in that hospital bed, with all the wires and tubes hooked up to him…

  I swallowed. “He looks so small and pale.”

  “He’s going to make it,” Rees told me.

  “You sound certain.”

  “I am, and you should be. Ambrose Donati won’t allow himself to go like this.”

  Samuel Rees’s shoulder was touching mine. That was as close as he was going to get to a comforting hug. I was glad. As much as I needed it, if he put even one arm around me, I would completely lose it. I couldn’t do that. Not now. I had to focus. Dr. Beck said that Grandad had regained consciousness long enough to ask about me. If I allowed myself to cry, Grandad might not see it, but he would feel it and know it. He needed strength, and I was going to be there for him, strong and steady, projecting the confidence that he was going to be just fine, and so was I. All he needed to do was rest and get better. I would take care of everything else.

  I took a steadying breath. “I need to call Gerald. Is there a place where I—”

  “There’s a waiting room and chapel at the end of the hall,” Rees said. “Take your time.” He paused. “I’ll be right here.”

  I gave a tight nod. That was almost as bad as a hug. I knew he was here, that he wasn’t going anywhere, and if the assassin somehow came to the room, Samuel Rees would block his line of sight and take that cardiac arrest or aneurysm for my grandad—or for me.

  I saw the sign for the chapel. Next to it was a small waiting room with a TV. Both were empty. I stepped into the waiting room. The TV was turned down and the closed captioning was on.

  Julian and Alan’s murders had momentarily given way to Mark Dalton’s aneurysm.

  The talking heads weren’t buying that there was anything natural about his death.

  They knew Julian Pierce was the chair of the intelligence committee with Mark Dalton in the secondary ranking member position. Entirely too much had happened over the past few years for the deaths, within days of each other, of the top senators on the committee to be accepted as anything but covered-up murders.

  At least that’s what the networks were going with. If there was the remotest possibility that it could be true and would send the ratings through the roof, that was what they’d go with morning, noon, and night. That is, until the truth surfaced, or a bigger story pushed it to the curb.

  The FBI had a reserved spot in the proverbial hot seat. Any high-profile federal crime handled with less than perfect efficiency earned them immediate condemnation. With Julian, Alan, and now Mark Dalton’s death, the temperature would be cranked up all the way on this one. There could be no mistakes. The media and the public expected nothing less than the killer’s head on a silver platter.

  I wanted that, too. I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

  Brandon Trevor and Ripton Pharmaceuticals were still being raked over the coals. The angle du jour was that the heart drug that saved American lives had possibly been modified and used to take the lives of Julian Pierce and Alan Coe, men now being touted as defenders of the people against the evil pharmaceutical companies. The conspiracy theorists still hadn’t figured out how to connect Mark Dalton’s aneurysm, but they were clearly working on it and I had no doubt they’d come up with something to keep the TV-watching public glued to their screens.

  If only they knew.

  Talk about TV worth watching. The truth was stranger than any of the fiction being concocted in any network staff meeting.

  I called Gerald. I kept it positive for him. He’d known me since the day I was born and believed what I was telling him about as much as I did. We both knew it was an act, but until Grandad woke up, got better, and walked out of this hospital, that was going to be our truth. It was what we needed, and we were gonna hold on to it for dear life with both hands. I told him I’d be spending the night at the hospital. Gerald didn’t offer to come and bring food, he told me that was what he was going to do. I didn’t argue with him. Gerald was family and like a brother to Grandad. I had no right to ask him to stay away, but I did tell him to wait for an FBI agent to pick him up. I knew Rees would agree and send someone.

  Dr. Beck had said the next few hours would be critical.

  I would be by Grandad’s side for all of them.

  CHAPTER 27

  The night was uneventful. Thank God.

  I’d kept watch even though there’d been nothing to see. No change, though that was what I desperately wanted. Grandad was breathing on his own, and he did it all night. At some point, I’d even managed to doze for an hour in a reclining chair they’d brought in.

  When I woke up, I found the nearest ladies’ room and did what I could to make myself feel human. I still had a toothbrush and toothpaste in my messenger bag from my flight home from Vegas, along with a travel pack of face wipes. I brushed my hair and wrestled it into a French braid and declared myself done. I looked in on Grandad before taking a walk down the hall to work the kinks out of my muscles. Next to the waiting room was a chapel. I paused outside the open door. It was empty.

  I went in.

  Grandad needed all the help he could get, and so did I. We all did.

  A few minutes later, I felt rather than heard someone come into the room.

  I knew him.

  I didn’t know what I expected to see when I turned around, but what I saw wasn’t it.

>   Gabriel Marshall was dressed as a priest, complete with collar.

  I stood. “You are so going to Hell.”

  “I’ve been told that many times.” Gone was the smile, the flippant attitude of yesterday. Berta had said Marshall was the consummate showman. I didn’t think this was an act. “To avoid being questioned or suspected, blend in with your surroundings. No one suspects a priest.”

  “They should,” I told him.

  Other than the clothes, Marshall hadn’t bothered with any kind of disguise.

  He wanted me to know it was him.

  I took a step back.

  “I’m no threat to you,” he said.

  “I know.” Maybe. “You might get struck by lightning, and I don’t want to share your fate. You’re also blocking my way out.”

  Marshall moved to the opposite side of the chapel, giving me a clear path to the door.

  I didn’t move. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I heard about Dalton’s murder. I knew Rees would be there, and so would you.” He paused. “And I know what happened to your grandfather. I’m so sorry.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you” seemed intrinsically wrong. I went with a nod.

  “So, you know Dalton was murdered,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “And you know the killer.”

  “You need to leave this alone. We’ll take care of it.”

  “Because you’re doing such a great job so far? Three men are dead—no, make that five, he killed two of our security company’s guards—and my grandfather was nearly…” I stopped in realization. “You followed Rees to the Hart Building, then followed us home.”

  “I did.”

  “You were there. You saw when he attacked my—”

  “And I didn’t arrive in time to stop him. I’m sorry.” Marshall paused, the smooth muscles in his jaw clenching. “He got away. Again.”

  I saw the assassin Berta said he was in his gunmetal gray eyes. A thwarted assassin. Gabriel Marshall had failed. Twice. He had targeted his prey, and that prey had escaped. It was unacceptable to him. But there was more. This was personal. He knew the killer.