Chapter 6 - Blood and Succession
The storm hit Boston on Friday night with the fury of an arctic front.
Snow piled in deep drifts against the basement windows of the Somerville flat. Inside, the ancient cast-iron radiator clanked and hissed, producing barely enough heat to keep the frost from forming on the inside of the glass.
Josie sat on the floor beside Poppy’s narrow cot, clutching a plastic bowl of cold water and a washcloth.
Poppy’s skin was burning. Her fever had spiked to a hundred and three around midnight, but worse than the fever was the cough. It wasn't the chesty, barking cough of a winter cold; it was a wet, shallow, bubbling sound that hitched in her throat every time she drew a breath.
"Mommy..." Poppy whimpered, her tiny hand clutching Josie's fingers with desperate strength. "My chest feels like there's a heavy rock on it."
"I know, baby. I know," Josie whispered, smoothing the cold cloth over her burning forehead. "Breathe slow. Through your nose, like we practiced."
Josie grabbed her phone. She dialed the emergency pediatrician line.
"If she is experiencing acute respiratory distress, you need to take her to the emergency room immediately," the triage nurse said flatly over the crackling line.
"We were there three weeks ago," Josie cried, her composure finally shattering. "They kept us in the hallway for fourteen hours, gave her an albuterol nebulizer, and billed me four thousand dollars because the attending physician was out-of-network! I don't have four thousand dollars!"
"Ma'am, if her lips show any cyanosis—any blue discoloration—she is in cardiac-induced pulmonary edema. Call an ambulance."
The line went dead.
Josie dropped the phone onto the blanket. She looked down at Poppy.
Under the dim yellow light of the bedside lamp, Poppy's lips weren't pink anymore. They had taken on a faint, terrifying shade of lavender.
Panic, cold and suffocating, seized Josie by the throat.
She stood up, her hands trembling so hard she could barely button her coat. She wrapped Poppy in two heavy wool blankets, lifting her light, burning body into her arms. She didn't have a car. She would have to carry her four blocks through the blizzard to the bus stop on Highland Avenue.
She kicked open the apartment door and stepped into the howling wind.
The snow was up to her knees. Within thirty yards, the freezing gale tore through her coat, cutting straight to the bone. Poppy was whimpering, pressing her hot face into Josie’s neck, her breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps.
"Mommy... it's too cold..."
"I've got you, Poppy! Hold on to Mommy!"
Josie took three more agonizing steps through the drift. Her boot slipped on a patch of black ice buried under the snow.
She fell hard on her side, twisting her body at the last second to take the brunt of the impact on her own shoulder, keeping Poppy elevated above the freezing slush. Pain shot through Josie’s collarbone. The heavy leather tool bag she had slung over her back spilled into the snow, scattering fifty years of her father’s tuning forks and brass pliers into the dark drifts.
She couldn't get up. Her boots had no traction. The wind screamed down the alleyway, driving needles of ice into her eyes.
Poppy went limp in her arms.
"Poppy!" Josie screamed, shaking the child gently. "Poppy, look at me! Look at Mommy!"
Poppy’s eyes rolled back, fluttering beneath pale lids. Her tiny chest was heaving in violent, silent spasms.
Sitting in the freezing snow, weeping uncontrollably, Josie shoved her gloved hand into her coat pocket.
Her fingers brushed against the thick, cream-colored card Julian Moretti had slipped there thirty-six hours ago.
She pulled out her cracked cell phone with frozen, numb fingers. With snow blurring her screen, she dialed the silver-embossed private number.
It didn't ring twice.
"Speak," Julian’s voice answered. He sounded wide awake, alert, and terrifyingly calm.
"Help her," Josie sobbed into the receiver, the wind howling around her. "Please... Julian, she's turning blue... she can't breathe... please help my baby..."
"Where are you?"
"The alley... behind Linden Street... I fell... I can't carry her..."
"Stay down," Julian ordered. His voice cut through her panic like a steel blade. "Cover her face from the wind. Don't move."
The line went dead.
Josie pulled the blankets tight over Poppy’s head, curling her own body around the child like a shield, pressing her back against the brick wall of a closed bakery. The cold was beginning to numb her limbs. Her shivers were slowing down—a sign she knew was fatal.
Three minutes passed. Five.
Then, through the blinding curtain of white, two massive halogen beams cut through the blizzard.
A black, armored Cadillac Escalade blew through the three-foot snowdrift at the end of the alley, throwing up twin waves of grey slush. The vehicle slid to a stop inches from where Josie lay curled on the ice.
The passenger doors flew open.
Two massive men in tactical winter coats leaped out, but before they could reach her, Julian Moretti was already there.
He didn't have a coat on—only his suit and an open collar, completely ignoring the sub-zero gale. He dropped to his knees in the filthy slush, sliding his arms under Poppy’s wrapped bundle and lifting her effortlessly against his chest.
"Get the mother," Julian barked over his shoulder.
One of the bodyguards grabbed Josie by the waist, hauling her to her feet and shoving her into the leather interior of the heated SUV. Julian was already in the back seat, laying Poppy flat across the leather, his long fingers instantly finding the pulse point on the side of her small throat.
May you like
"Massachusetts General," Julian snapped through the partition to the driver. "Call Dr. Christopher. Tell him if the pediatric catheterization theater isn't prepped when we hit the bay, I'll burn his clinic to the ground."
***
