Pushing the speculative thoughts from his mind, Gage attempted to engage Katja and Ina. Neither daughter wanted to talk. In an effort to break the silence, Gage turned on the radio and listened to Fußball fans arguing with each other about Eintracht Frankfurt’s followers and several incidents that happened during Europa League play.
It was just past 9 P.M. when the ambulance wheeled into the emergency area of the Bürgerhospital in Frankfurt. Gage dropped the daughters at the entrance and parked the Audi.
* * *
At 12:02 A.M., a bright-faced young female doctor with a bindi on her forehead found Gage and the Vogel daughters alone in a private waiting area. The three were not sitting together. Katja dozed or meditated in one corner—Gage couldn’t tell—and Ina steadily looked at her mobile phone with its charging cord plugged into the wall. Gage had sat in the middle of the room. He’d passed time by reading a motorcycle magazine but, if pressed, he wouldn’t be able to relay much of what he’d just read. The doctor walked inside and shut the door. When everyone was listening, she spoke.
“Frau Vogel has suffered a brain aneurysm that has ruptured. It’s severe.”
There was a protracted period of silence.
When neither daughter spoke, Gage asked, “What area of the brain?”
“It occurred in the area of the anterior communicating artery.” The doctor touched the top of her head.
“How severe?”
The doctor’s expression was grim. “It’s not completely clear yet, but in my estimation, this will probably not be survivable.”
Again, Gage paused in deference to the daughters. They remained silent.
When they didn’t speak, he asked, “What sort of workup has been done?”
“CT scan and blood work, both of which indicated the aneurysm.”
“Can you do anything at this stage?”
“Very little in the near term. Even if we could, she has a rather strict living will that prevents us from taking certain types of action. I’ve consulted with her physician and we’re treating this with medicine.”
“Is coiling it an option?”
The doctor arched her eyebrows. “No, not in this instance.”
Gage gestured to Katja and Ina. “Any questions?”
Other than concerned expressions, they had nothing.
“Are you a neurosurgeon?” Gage asked the doctor.
“Yes, I am.”
“If you could take action absent of the living will, would you?”
“If you’re speaking of surgery, no, not at this stage—not with her.” The doctor patiently explained what had probably happened in Claudia’s brain. Hers was a saccular aneurysm. It had almost certainly ballooned at first before bursting and creating immense pressure on her brain.
“How severe would this be in someone young and healthy?”
The doctor appeared regretful. “Any of us in this room would probably have a hard time surviving it.”
“Even with surgery?”
“Even with surgery.”
Gage vigorously massaged his face as the news set in. “Can her daughters see her?”
“Not right now. Maybe later.”
Gage thanked the doctor. She opened the door but paused and looked at Gage.
“If you don’t mind my asking, do you work in the medical field?”
“No,” Gage replied. “I’ve just had a little training, primarily basic field first aid and that type of thing.”
The doctor nodded. “We’ll do our best with Frau Vogel.”
Gage knew what was coming. A tiny grenade had gone off in the center of Claudia’s brain. She’d never make it out of here.
He left the sisters alone and walked the hospital until he managed to find some decent coffee. He brought three cups back to the waiting room, surprised to see the sisters crying and hugging. It didn’t last. The two women wiped their tears and resumed their spots across the room.
“I can leave you two alone.”
“No. Stay, please,” Katja whispered.
Gage found his center seat, pondering how sad this entire affair was. Sad because Claudia had no close friends. Sad because the Vogel family was so dysfunctional. Sad because Claudia believed her husband had been murdered. And sad because, as of yesterday’s meeting with Marcel, it seemed certain that some of the Vogel fortune had come via nefarious sources.
It grew far gloomier when, at 3:57 A.M., the same doctor appeared. Once Gage saw her—the morose look on her face and the slow speed at which she entered—the death march—he already knew what she’d come to tell them.
Katja and Ina knew it, too. One buried her face in her hands. The other left the room without a word.
The doctor’s words were compassionate. After she’d spoken them, she told the family to stay as long as they pleased.
The news was exactly as Gage had feared: the towering matriarch of the Vogel clan, Claudia Saskia Thalheimer Vogel—the woman who’d recently written her children from her will—had passed away.
And Gage hadn’t gotten a chance to tell her a single word of what he’d learned from Marcel about her husband.
CHAPTER NINE
At no point in his life had Gage ever felt more like an outsider than he did right now. It was mid-afternoon. Claudia had passed away approximately 12 hours ago. Early in the morning, when they first arrived back to the estate, both Katja and Ina retired to their homes. Gage visited with each estate employee, making sure they heard the news in person. Of the few who weren’t working today, he phoned them. This took several hours. When he was finished, he called Katja and Ina but neither answered. Despite their grief—or whatever emotion they were overcome with—he needed to speak with them about how to move forward, sooner rather
