Chapter 4 - The Sanctuary at Blackstone Basin
The radiator on the utility truck was leaking steam by the time Rafe cut the engine behind an abandoned parish house near Uxbridge.
The building was an old Victorian rectory attached to a granite church whose stained-glass windows were covered with rotting sheets of plywood.
The storm had worsened, the temperature plummeting to eight degrees below zero while the wind whipped the heavy pines into rhythmic shrieks.
"Inside," Rafe ordered, grabbing an iron pry bar from behind the driver’s seat.
Gio assisted Mave through the deep drifts, his grip steady on her arm as her exhausted legs gave out beneath her twice.
Rafe wedged the tool into the rectory’s cellar door, applying his full weight until the rusted lock gave way with a sharp crack.
They stumbled down three concrete steps into a dry, stone-lined basement that smelled of dry wood, candle wax, and decades of dust.
Gio immediately pulled a heavy burlap sack across the high cellar window, blocking any light from escaping into the snowy yard.
Rafe struck a match and lit a kerosene lantern left behind on an old workbench, casting long, amber shadows across the granite walls.
"Sit," Rafe said to Mave, pointing toward a rough wooden bench beside a non-functioning coal furnace.
Mave dropped onto the wood, her face pale, her lips tinged with a faint shade of blue from the exposure.
Her breath came in shallow, ragged gasps as she held her injured hand against her chest.
Rafe knelt in front of her without taking off his gloves, his dark eyes studying the tight lines of exhaustion etched around her eyes.
"Birdie packed supplies in the green rucksack," Rafe said over his shoulder to Gio.
"Get the antiseptic and the clean rolls of gauze," Rafe commanded.
"I can do it myself," Mave whispered, her teeth chattering so hard the words were barely intelligible.
"I'm a nurse, Balandi," she said.
"I've dressed a thousand wounds worse than this," she muttered.
"You're in shock, and your right hand is shaking so hard you couldn't untie your own boot," Rafe countered calmly.
He reached out, took her bandaged left hand in his large fingers, and began unwrapping the blood-soaked cotton Birdie had applied that morning.
The cut across her palm was deep, running from the base of her index finger down to the heel of her hand where the window glass had severed the flesh.
It was red, swollen, and weeping clear fluid along the torn margins.
Rafe inspected the wound with the clinical detachment of a man who had seen many bodies torn open by violence.
"It needs three sutures," Rafe noted, looking up at her face.
"No thread," Mave breathed, leaning her head back against the cold granite wall.
"Butterfly bandages and pressure," she directed him.
"Pour the alcohol first," she gritted out.
Rafe took the brown bottle from Gio, unscrewed the cap with his teeth, and looked Mave directly in the eyes.
"Bite your lip, Callahan," he said.
He poured the clear liquid straight across the raw cut.
Mave’s back arched off the wooden bench, a stifled cry catching in her throat as every nerve ending in her arm screamed with white-hot fire.
She grabbed Rafe’s shoulder with her uninjured right hand, her fingers digging through his heavy wool coat down into the muscle beneath.
Rafe did not flinch, allowing her to bear down on him with all the frantic strength remaining in her slender frame.
He waited until the burning subsided, then methodically wiped away the excess with a sterile swab.
He applied the adhesive strips with astonishing gentleness, pulling the torn edges of skin together until the wound was sealed.
He wrapped her hand in fresh white linen, securing the final turn with a clean half-hitch knot outside the tendon, exactly as Birdie had done.
Mave slowly opened her eyes, her chest heaving as the room stopped spinning.
She looked at her hand, then looked at the man still kneeling on the cold floor before her.
"Where did you learn to do that?" she asked, her voice cracking.
"A warehouse in South Boston when I was nineteen," Rafe answered quietly.
"A man named Tommy Rourke took a blade across the forearm during an argument over a shipment of imported liquor," Rafe said.
"We couldn't take him to Massachusetts General because the police were watching the triage desk," Rafe explained.
"An old dock mechanic showed me how to close meat without leaving an infection," Rafe added.
He stood up, wiping his hands on a clean rag Gio handed him.
"We have thirty-nine hours before the senate committee meets in Providence," Mave said, looking down at the canvas bag resting against her feet.
"If we don't deliver that notebook to Naomi Whitcomb by eight o'clock Monday morning, it doesn't matter who survived that highway crash," she said.
"The state will seal the corporate filings for five years," Mave warned.
"Doyle’s holding companies will absorb all twenty-two facilities into a national healthcare conglomerate based out of Delaware," she said.
"And the people who died will be erased from every database in the state," she finished.
Gio walked over from the corner, holding a small battery-operated pocket radio to his ear.
"State police dispatch is broadcasting a special bulletin," Gio reported grimly.
"They found a body in an apartment on Hope Street an hour ago," Gio said.
Mave froze, her blood turning to ice.
"Whose apartment?" she whispered.
"Arthur Lindquist," Gio said, looking directly at Mave.
"Eighty-two years old," Gio read from the transmission details.
"Apparent fall down a flight of cellar stairs," Gio continued.
"They're calling it an accidental domestic death," Gio added.
"He didn't fall," Mave said, her voice dropping into a register of sheer terror.
"Lindquist lived in a single-story garden flat on Hope Street," Mave revealed.
"He didn't have cellar stairs," she said.
"They found the original seal was missing," Rafe realized, his face hardening like stone.
"They went to the retired notary to find out where his old stamp was, and when he told them he didn't know, they ended him," Rafe said.
"Now they are looking for the only two things left that can prove the conspiracy," Rafe stated.
"The ledger on your lap, Callahan, and the piece of brass in your pocket," Rafe concluded.
Mave reached down and pulled the heavy brass seal from her pocket, looking at the ornate lettering carved into its circular face.
"They are killing everyone who ever touched this paper," she whispered.
"Then we stop running through the woods," Rafe declared, his voice cutting through the damp darkness of the cellar.
"We don't sneak into Boston like beggars hoping for an appointment," Rafe said.
"We take the fight to Franklin Doyle before he can reach the courthouse doors," Rafe proclaimed.
Gio smiled faintly in the darkness, the cold, ruthless grin of a street soldier who preferred an attack over a retreat.
May you like
Mave looked between the two men, realizing with sudden clarity that she was no longer merely a witness seeking justice.
She had become the tip of an iron spear aimed directly at the heart of Rhode Island’s most protected monster.
