Since Gage now had ample time before the funeral, he phoned the number Marcel had provided for Il Magnifico. Gage spoke English to a polite woman who must have been the wealthy criminal’s assistant. She had an Italian accent. Together, they made arrangements for a brief visit with Il Magnifico on the Cote d’Azur in southern France. With his meeting scheduled, Gage booked an economy ticket on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Nice for the following morning.
He finally felt as if he were getting somewhere.
In the mid-afternoon, an overnight package arrived for Gage at the estate manor. It was wrapped in peculiar tape with a number of biological warnings. He opened it, finding a Styrofoam cooler with Karl Vogel’s blood sample inside. Gage put the sample in the refrigerator and refroze the two cooling packets. He then phoned a renegade doctor friend back in the States who’d patched him up more than once.
The doctor answered his mobile phone on the first ring. “This is John,” he barked.
John Kudlak was a pulmonologist and one of the most unique physicians Gage had met in all his years. A rabid West Virginian from the state’s panhandle, Doctor Kudlak was as intense as he was intelligent. Gage had once watched the doctor nearly start a bar brawl with a pack of bikers all because one of them said something mildly derogatory about his beloved West Virginia Mountaineers. In Gage’s experience—not many doctors were fighters.
But this one was.
Gage had quickly learned to provide only compliments to the “Old Gold and Blue.”
“Hey doc, this is Gage Hartline.”
“Whoa, it’s Hartline!” Kudlak yelled. “Don’t tell me you’ve got more bullets for me to remove. I’m still pencil-whipping hospital paperwork from the last time.”
“No, nothing like that. And thanks again, by the way.”
“Hey, it’s not every day I get to remove a 7.62 bullet from someone’s ass. If you’re not calling about yourself, it must be about Ron Alley. He need some lead removed?” Doctor Kudlak asked, referencing Gage’s buddy Ron, the South Carolina mercenary who’d helped Gage on Feralis Island.
“It’s not about Ron. He might need patching up—in fact, knowing him, he probably does need patching up—but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“So what’s up? I’m about to head into a procedure. Got five minutes.”
Gage gave a brief précis of his current situation, leaving out a number of key details. “Bottom line: a man with a history of heart disease died of a presumed heart attack. But after an exhaustive autopsy was done, his blood was found to be abnormally high in potassium chloride.”
“That’d do it.”
“So, here’s why I called—if I overnight you the blood sample, will you have it tested? I need it tested by someone I trust. I’m happy to pay whatever it costs. But I need to know if the amount of potassium chloride is higher than could occur naturally.”
“Has the blood been spun?”
“No idea.”
“If it hasn’t been spun, your sample is crap. Send it anyway. It’s probably been spun.”
“How long will the test take?”
“Hard to say. I’ll push it.”
“Guesses?”
“Best case is next day. Worst case…weeks.”
“I appreciate any help you can provide. You sure you don’t mind doing this?”
“Compared to what you’ve had me do before? This is an easy one, Hartline.”
Gage and Doctor Kudlak discussed where to send the sample. Once that was done, Gage waited for the ice packs to refreeze and then drove the box to the nearest overnight shipping facility in Friedberg. It cost nearly $400 to send the sample for delivery the following morning. To Gage, confirmation of the blood test results would certainly be worth it.
Back at the manor, he ordered a few sandwiches for supper. Ursula personally prepared them and asked if she could stay while he ate. The sandwiches were fantastic, loaded with roast beef and slathered in spicy mustard. She built them between lye bread rolls, a Bavarian specialty. Gage inhaled both sandwiches, despite Ursula’s unnerving presence. He couldn’t help but be unsettled due to what he’d heard about her.
Sure enough, after telling Gage a long tale of woe about her financial situation, along with her fear that she’d lose her job now that Claudia had passed away, Ursula made a move on him.
She started with, “I’m off the clock now.”
He didn’t reply.
“You hear me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he answered with a mouthful of sandwich.
“Well, I’ve got nowhere to be tonight and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a bit reckless.” After she’d said it, she arched an eyebrow and waited.
Because his flight was early, and after Katja’s warnings, Gage said he needed to get to bed.
“Rain check?”
“We could hang out sometime,” Gage said, hating the words as they came out of his mouth. He was such a sucker for a woman. But what was the harm? He was single. She was single. And she was damn sexy, even with the crazy hair colors and dark lipstick.
“Promise?” she’d asked.
Sheesh. He nodded.
Gage had little desire to get involved with anyone—and if Katja’s warnings about Ursula were correct, she was probably the last thing Gage needed at the moment.
Following a brief phone call, Thomas agreed to take care of Sheriff while Gage was gone. The remainder of the evening was uneventful. In order to be well rested for travel and his meeting with Il Magnifico, Gage retired early.
If he
