Chapter 3 - The Door on the Third Floor
The third floor of the Moretti mansion felt like a separate building altogether.
While the ground floor was grand and immaculate, the top corridor was dark, narrow, and carpeted in a thick, runner rug that swallowed the sound of footsteps. The air up here was noticeably warmer, smelling heavy with dried sweat, stagnant air, and the faint, bitter tang of old rubbing alcohol.
Daniel led Sloan to the end of the long hallway.
Standing before a pair of heavy oak doors was a small table holding a large silver tray. On the tray sat a plate of untouched roasted chicken, a cold bowl of soup, and a clean glass of water.
"He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning," Daniel whispered. His tone had changed up here; the cool authority he exhibited downstairs was replaced by a tense, wary vigilance.
"Who cleans the room?" Sloan asked.
"Nobody," Daniel said. "He lets me set the tray outside the door at seven in the morning and seven at night. If he's conscious, he pulls it inside. If he's having an episode... the food stays here until it rots."
Sloan looked at the heavy brass door handle.
Suddenly, a sound echoed from behind the thick oak panels.
It wasn't a roar or a cry of anger. It was a low, desperate groan that started deep in a man's chest and rose into a sharp, ragged gasp for air. It sounded like the noise a drowning swimmer makes when they break the surface of the water just before going under again.
“Ah... God... stop it... stop...”
The voice was rough, choked with dry heat and agony.
Daniel took an involuntary half-step backward, his hand resting flat against the wall.
"He's been like that since four o'clock this afternoon," Daniel muttered, his jaw tight. "The Boston specialist said it was a 'neurological feedback loop.' Said his brain is firing signal storms down dead nerve pathways."
"The Boston specialist was right about the biology," Sloan said quietly. "Where is the kitchen?"
Daniel blinked. "Downstairs, off the rear pantry."
"Bring me a large zinc basin, three clean hand towels, and a pitcher of ice water," Sloan said. "And get rid of that cold chicken. It smells like grease."
"He won't open the door for ice water," Daniel warned.
"I didn't ask him to open it," Sloan replied. She reached out, grabbed the heavy brass handle of the bedroom door, and turned it.
The door was unlocked.
"Sloan, wait—" Daniel started, reaching out to catch her arm.
"Go get the water, Daniel," she said, without turning around.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The bedroom was vast, but it felt suffocatingly small. The two large arched windows overlooking the bay had been covered with heavy black wool drapes, which were held firmly against the wooden frames by thick iron nails driven straight into the molding.
The only light in the room came from a single, low-wattage desk lamp sitting on the floor in the far corner.
The air was hot—at least eighty degrees—trapped by a roaring fire in a small corner hearth that had burnt down to a thick bed of glowing red coals.
In the center of the room sat a massive four-poster bed.
Lying on his side in the middle of the mattress was Raphael Moretti.
He was thirty-two years old, but in the dim orange light, he looked ancient. His hair was thick, dark, and wild, matted with dried sweat against his forehead. He wore a dark cotton shirt that was soaked through at the chest, and loose linen trousers.
His left leg was whole, extended flat against the mattress.
His right leg ended six inches below his knee, wrapped in a clean, tight white compression sock.
He was doubled over, his thick, muscular arms wrapped tightly around his right thigh, his hands gripping his own leg with such tremendous force that his knuckles were stark white. His head was pressed into the mattress, his teeth gritting so hard a thin line of red blood was leaking from the corner of his lower lip where he had bitten through the skin.
"Get... out..." he gasped into the pillow, his voice barely a rasp.
Sloan didn't move. She stood three feet inside the door, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom.
On the nightstand beside the bed sat six prescription bottles—high-dose OxyContin, Gabapentin, Fentanyl patches, and Valium. Three of the bottles had been knocked over, their white and yellow capsules spilled across the polished mahogany surface like scattered teeth.
"I said... get... out!" Rafe snarled.
With a sudden, violent movement, he reached out with his right arm, grabbed a heavy crystal water carafe from the nightstand, and hurled it with terrifying force straight at her head.
Sloan didn't flinch. She simply tilted her head three inches to the left.
The crystal carafe shattered against the doorframe right behind her ear, exploding into a shower of heavy glass fragments and cold water that splashed across the back of her gray dress.
The sound echoed through the room like a gunshot.
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Sloan looked down at the broken glass near her shoes. Then she looked back at the man on the bed, who was panting heavily, his single dark eye glaring at her through his matted hair like an animal trapped in a snare.
"You missed," Sloan said softly.
