Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“Ican’t find anything on her. Anywhere.”
Angelo blinked, trying to make sense of Jared’s words. He glanced at the IV drip, wondering if he’d had too much morphine. Maybe that was why it was hard to focus. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and met Jared’s eyes.
“Say that again?”
Jared ran a hand through his dark hair and leaned over the foot of Angelo’s hospital bed.
“Angelo, I couldn’t find anything on this woman. There are hundreds of Kara Gallaghers on the top social media sites but none of them match her with any facial recognition software.”
“Wait… how did you run facial recognition on her?”
Jared’s face reddened. “I… uh… snapped a photo of her after we met in the waiting room. I didn’t know who she was, and I just had a feeling I might need to know later.
So I snapped a shot of her using my camera’s zoom lens from across the room.
” He paused before continuing. “I thought I had a breakthrough when I found her driver’s license, but it has an address from New York that links to a month-by-month cash lease apartment building.
What little I can find leads to a dead end with this woman. ”
He still didn’t understand. “There has to be more. Why can’t you find more on her? What about her social security number… previous jobs, where she went to high school anything?”
“There’s nothing, Angelo. Unless you come up with a social security number or a birth certificate or something…
I can’t do much else. The woman is a ghost. And there’s only one reason I can think of that she wouldn’t be in any system,” Jared paused for effect and then continued.
“Because someone doesn’t want her to be found.
If I had to guess, she’s in the witness protection program. ”
That made sense. He already knew she was running from something. Hiding from someone.
“There are several reasons why she might have gone into witness protection.” Jared started to pace the room. “She could have witnessed a crime, worked for criminal organization, or she’s related to someone who turned state’s evidence against whatever organization they worked for.”
Angelo had seen his fair share of movies and TV shows and thought he knew a little about how it worked. “So, does that mean she has a handler or someone from Witness Protection to look out of her?”
“Yes, if she is involved with WITSEC. We have no way to tell though. What worries me is the cop who attacked you, or the ‘fake cop’ or whatever,” Jared added.
“He’s close to finding her. As a lawyer, I don’t like jumping to conclusions, but I think given the amount of circumstantial evidence involved, we can operate on the assumption that Kara O’Brien is the same person as Kara Gallagher. ”
It was a sound assumption, one Angelo would have made on his own with the same information.
“So what we do?” Angelo asked.
Jared stopped pacing. “First, we get you out of here as soon as the doctor clears you. Then we get Kara to tell us who she really is. Once we know what we're dealing with, we can create a game plan.”
“Dante is watching over Kara, but what if she is in real danger? That man knows she’s at my home with my family.” That had kept Angelo from sleeping for the last several hours, the thought that he might have put everyone he loved in danger.
“Roarke sometimes uses a security team to watch over his clients. I could ask him about some private muscle.”
Angelo nodded and laid his head back on the pillows. “Call them.”
“You got it,” Jared promised, then chuckled. “Can you believe he and Shana are dating?”
Angelo smile. “I can, actually. You and Thad were always so hard on him, but I knew he just wanted to be a part of our circle. Well, that and he was in love with Shana. You just had to get out of the way before he could make his move.”
Angelo had never missed Roarke’s longing looks at Jared’s ex-girlfriend, but it hadn’t been his place to interfere.
Shana and Jared had to realize they weren’t right for each other in their own time.
Once that happened, Roarke had a chance to show Shana he loved her.
The pieces of their puzzle had been properly put in place. Angelo was glad for it.
“Angelo, do you really want to get involved in whatever this is?” Jared asked. “If Kara is on the run, we should get her to contact her handler and let the feds take are of this.”
The idea of Kara of vanishing in the night, never to be seen again, left his stomach in knots. “Do you remember how you felt when someone broke into Felicity’s apartment?”
Jared’s face paled. “Yeah, I remember. One of the worst days of my life.”
“How would you have felt about being told to step back and let someone else handle it.”
“Not great,” Jared admitted.
“That’s how I feel right now.” The thought of Kara in danger… well… he’d already gotten stabbed acting on his instinct to protect her. He couldn’t stop now.
“I get that, I do. But there are some things that are just too big to handle. If this is tied to the mob—”
“If,” Angelo cut in. “If she is in witness protection, maybe you’re right, maybe we should let the professionals handle it. But if she is, why hasn’t she already done that? What if she’s not in witness protection at all? What if this is something else entirely?”
The hospital door opened and Angelo tensed, but it was only his doctor.
Dr. Morales, the surgeon who’d operated on him, was a kind woman with eyes that told him she had seen a lot of pain and trauma over the years. “Good evening, Mr. Vertucci. I’m here to check on your drain and the incision area.” She glanced at Jared questioningly.
“He can stay,” Angelo assured her.
“Actually, I’d better go,” said Jared, taking his leave. “I’ll make that call to Roarke.”
Dr. Morales studied the drains connected to Angelo’s wound, then pushed up the hospital gown and examined the incision area. Five staples sank into his flesh, holding the incision together.
“Nothing looks inflamed. It’s not hot to the touch,” Dr. Morales murmured as her gloved fingers gently probed the area. “Any problems using the bathroom? Bowel movements coming back to normal?”
Angelo’s face flushed. “Yes. About two hours ago. Everything seems fine.”
“Good. Sometimes the surgery or the anesthesia can slow the gastrointestinal system. When we cut into you, we didn’t see any bowel injuries, but it’s important to keep watching for issues.”
“Can I start eating real food yet?” he asked flashing the doctor a charming grin. The liquid diet they had him on had lost its appeal almost instantly.
“Not quite. Let’s give it until tomorrow, all right?” She picked up the chart at the foot of the bed. “White blood cell count looks normal. I don’t think we need to do a transfusion. How are you feeling overall?”
“Tired,” Angelo sighed. “Tired and sore.”
Dr. Morales smiled. “That’s normal. You had a massive adrenaline spike during the attack, then lost a lot of blood, before and during surgery. Then you had anesthesia given to you and general body trauma.”
“Body trauma?”
“Most people don’t realize that surgery is itself a form of trauma to the body.
We put you under, sometimes we have to intubate you, would force your body to operate under very unnatural conditions for an extended period of time.
You’re recovering from all that as well as the attack.
You’ll start getting your strength back soon, but you’ll be sore in the abdomen for a very long time.
So give yourself some grace and be gentle with your body so it can heal better and faster. ”
In other words, don’t fight off cops trying to kill you, he thought darkly. He’d been lucky that the staples hadn’t ripped open.
“You’ve got a great bedside manner, Doc,” Angelo said.
Dr. Morales laughed. “Thank you. I never for one minute forget my patients are people. The nurse will be in with your dinner shortly.”
He sighed. “In other words, more smoothies and pudding. Doc, when I get out of here you need to come by the Italian Village. Your dinner will be on me.”
The doctor’s eyes brightened. “I know the place. You work there?”
He nodded. “I own it, and I’m the head chef.”
She chuckled. “Well I will be certainly dropping by in that case. No wonder the hospital diet is killing you.” She chuckled as she left him to rest and think.
After the doctor left, Angelo was left to his own thoughts and how much he couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital. He wanted to get back to his life, to his family, to Kara.
Kara was just as anxious as the rest of the family to visit Angelo again later that night after dinner. She rode with Dante and Matteo, while Francesca and Alessia came with the kids in a separate car.
For the last couple of hours, Dante had been watching her.
She could tell he’d tried not to let her notice, but that was exactly the kind of thing she’d learned to pick up on.
And if you caught someone doing that at just the right time, the look in their eyes would tell you if you were in danger or not.
She’d caught Dante at the right time, but she didn’t know what to make of his look.
It wasn’t exactly suspicion, more like concern.
But there was a lack of trust there as well.
Something was wrong. For the entire ride to the hospital, she twisted her fingers in the folds of her baggy sweatshirt.
She sat in the back seat and when she sensed the moment was right, she looked up, catching Dante who was sitting in the driver’s seat watching her in the rearview mirror.
The odd look was still there, but this time he didn’t look away.
“You okay, Kara?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
In the passenger seat, Matteo turned to her, his face gentle. “We’re all nervous to see him again.” The fatherly expression so foreign to her but also so welcome. Whatever was going on with Dante, Matteo wasn’t aware of it.
“I think it’s just the hospital,” she finally said. “I keep thinking about bringing him here in the ambulance. It’s still a lot to process.”