Chapter 8

When Sarah Woke

Matteo reached Massachusetts General before midnight became morning.

Emma sat in a pediatric consultation room with Officer Ruiz and a hospital social worker named Karen Mills. Someone had found her socks, a blanket and a paper cup of cocoa she had not touched.

Matteo stopped in the doorway rather than entering.

Emma saw him and stood. “You came.”

“I said I would.”

Ruiz looked at the social worker. Karen gave a small nod.

“Five minutes,” Ruiz said. “Door open.”

Matteo sat in the chair farthest from Emma. He no longer wore his coat. She had carried it from the ambulance and held it folded across her lap.

“Is Mommy going to die?” she asked.

“The doctors are stopping the bleeding.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

He respected her too much to lie.

“I don’t know. Dr. Chen is with her, and she is one of the best people I know.”

“Is she your friend?”

“As close as I have to one.”

Emma considered that. “You should get more.”

The answer nearly escaped him as a laugh, but the operating-room doors opened before it could.

Dr. Chen crossed the hall in blue scrubs. Fatigue marked her eyes, yet she gave Emma the news first.

“Your mother is stable. We controlled the bleeding. She’ll need close observation, but the surgery went well.”

Emma’s cup tipped. Matteo caught it before cocoa spilled across the floor.

“Can I see her?”

“Soon. She’s still asleep.”

Emma began to cry. Karen sat beside her, and this time Emma allowed an adult to place an arm around her shoulders.

Matteo stepped into the hall with Elizabeth.

“How bad?”

“Subdural bleeding, caught in time. She also has a concussion, facial bruising and injuries on both forearms. I expect recovery, but there may be headaches, fatigue and memory gaps.”

“She’ll wake?”

“That is the expectation.” Elizabeth looked past him at Emma. “Calling an ambulance was the right decision.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I’ve known you fifteen years.”

He had no answer to that.

Sarah opened her eyes late the following afternoon.

During the hours before that, Matteo’s attorney arrived and advised him to leave.

“You gave police enough,” the attorney said. “Remaining here creates exposure without improving her care.”

Matteo watched Emma sleeping beneath a hospital blanket, Sarah’s phone no longer in her hands for the first time all night.

“She asked if I was coming.”

“You came. She saw you. Go home.”

“No.”

The attorney lowered his voice. “This family is now connected to your name. That may put them in another kind of danger.”

Matteo accepted the warning because it was true. He called Vincent and imposed a rule: no one in the organization was to learn Sarah’s room number, Emma’s school or where either went after discharge. Any inquiry about the Petersons would reach him directly.

For once, protecting someone meant limiting his own access too.

Her first word was Emma’s name.

The nurses brought Emma in after explaining the bandages and monitors. Emma approached the bed as if crossing ice, frightened any sudden movement might break her mother again.

Sarah lifted one bruised hand.

Emma ran the remaining distance.

“I didn’t leave you,” she sobbed. “I stayed until the ambulance came.”

Sarah pressed her lips to Emma’s hair. “My brave girl.”

“I texted for help. It was the wrong number, but Matt came anyway.”

Sarah’s gaze moved beyond her daughter.

Matteo stood outside the open door with Ruiz. He had waited because Emma asked him to. He had also understood that Sarah might wake to fear rather than gratitude.

“Who is Matt?” Sarah whispered.

Ruiz answered gently. “Matteo Ricci. He received Emma’s text, called 911, entered the house and restrained Derek before Derek reached her.”

Recognition entered Sarah’s face, followed by alarm.

Boston newspapers had called Matteo many things. Businessman was the most charitable.

“Why?” she asked.

“That’s a question for him,” Ruiz said. “You do not have to speak to anyone today.”

Sarah pulled Emma closer. “I want to.”

Matteo entered only after she nodded.

He stopped at the foot of the bed. Sarah noticed that he left the door open and did not move between her and the nurses’ station.

“Mr. Ricci.” Her voice was weak but guarded. “My daughter says you saved us.”

“Your daughter saved both of you. I followed her instructions.”

“Eight-year-olds don’t give instructions to men like you.”

“This one did.”

Emma looked between them. “I told him the address.”

“I know, baby.” Sarah never took her eyes from Matteo. “What do you want?”

There it was—the question of someone who had learned that help often arrived with an invoice.

“Nothing.”

“Men don’t do what you did for nothing.”

“One did last night.”

Sarah flinched at his tone, and Matteo softened it.

“You do not owe me access to your life, your home or your gratitude. I can arrange a lawyer experienced in domestic-violence cases, a secure place to stay and transportation when you leave here. You can accept one, all or none of those things.”

“And if I say I never want to see you again?”

“Then I walk out, and the assistance remains available through the lawyer without my name attached.”

Emma frowned. “But I want to see him.”

Sarah stroked her hair. “This isn’t a decision you make alone.”

“Neither is it one he makes,” Matteo said. “It is yours.”

Sarah studied him for a long time.

“No money,” she said finally. “No house. I won’t move from one man controlling my bills to another.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll speak to the lawyer.”

“She will work for you, not me.”

“She?”

“Rebecca Shaw. Former prosecutor. She now represents survivors.”

Sarah’s mouth tightened as pain passed through her. “Have her come tomorrow.”

Matteo inclined his head and turned to leave.

“Matt,” Emma called.

He looked back.

“I didn’t choose the wrong person,” she said.

Sarah closed her eyes, exhausted. “Apparently you didn’t.”

Rebecca arrived the next morning with a leather folder and none of the deference most people showed Matteo. She spoke to Sarah alone first. Afterward, she asked Matteo and Ruiz to join them.

“Derek has been denied immediate release because of the outstanding warrant and the severity of Sarah’s injuries,” Rebecca said. “But someone tried to deliver a message through his cousin.”

Sarah’s fingers tightened around the blanket.

“What message?”

Rebecca opened the folder.

“If you cooperate with police, Derek says you’ll lose the house.”