Chapter 6 - The Clinic He Tried to Buy
The first time I saw the name of Carmine's holding company, it was in a confidential accounting summary Mara showed me during a scheduled interview. The second time, it was on a letter in my landlord's office.
The business wasn't offering to buy my clinic itself. It was a financial backer of the company that had approached the landlord about purchasing the building.
I read the ownership information three times.
Then I looked at my attorney, Jonathan Hale.
“Is this a coincidence?”
“It's a connection,” he answered carefully. “We can't prove what anybody intended from ownership alone. But it gives us a reason to preserve every communication.”
I almost laughed.
My father's clinic was a small storefront with aging chairs and a compressor that made an embarrassing noise. Carmine could have bought a building ten times its size without noticing the expense. Yet an investment linked to his company was suddenly interested in the one property I couldn't afford to leave.
He knew where pressure would hurt.
Jonathan sent a formal request for the relevant communications and advised me not to accuse the landlord. My lease renewal was valid, and no sale by itself could erase its terms. I found comfort in that ordinary fact: paperwork could protect people when it was handled honestly.
Salvatore called that afternoon.
“I heard about the building,” he said.
“I have an attorney.”
“Good.”
“I don't want your men frightening my landlord.”
“I wasn't going to suggest it.”
“Your world has a way of becoming everyone else's problem.”
He said nothing for several seconds.
“That's fair,” he answered.
I hadn't expected him to admit it.
Over the following week, the police took a fuller statement from me. Mara provided the financial records through appropriate channels, and investigators arranged to review the recovered harbor video. I made no copies of records I wasn't authorized to possess. My role was limited to what I had observed in the dental chair and what had happened afterward.
That boundary did not make the fear disappear.
At closing time one evening, I found two men standing across the street from the clinic. They didn't approach me. They might have been waiting for a bus. I stayed inside until the street grew busy, then left with a friend who had offered to drive me home.
The next morning, a patient asked why I looked tired.
“Long week,” I said.
“Then take care of yourself too, Doc.”
The kindness nearly undid me.
I had spent so much time saving my father's practice that I sometimes forgot the people who made it worth saving.
Salvatore came to the clinic two days later with only one plainclothes security officer waiting outside. It was the first time he'd set foot in a dental office in years. He stopped beneath my father's framed photograph, studying it for a long time.
“You look like him,” he said.
“Everyone says that when they don't know what else to say.”
His mouth tilted slightly. “Then I won't.”
His examination showed healing where the molar had been removed. The oral surgeon had recommended further evaluation of the old injury, and Salvatore had kept the appointment. I was relieved that he was beginning to take care of himself without treating every medical professional as an enemy.
“I ate scrambled eggs this morning,” he said.
“That doesn't count as steak.”
“It counts as more than soup.”
It was the first small victory in a case crowded with terrible things.
While he was there, Salvatore told me his attorney had discovered that the North Pier owner had left New York shortly after the shooting. Investigators were attempting to locate him. They also had bank records showing that Carmine's holding company had made additional payments after the contractor shut down.
“Do you know why?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
Salvatore glanced at the doorway.
“Carmine keeps saying I owe him my life. He says he pulled me from the car.”
“Did he?”
“I remember him reaching for me. And I remember Daniel Price pushing open my door. Then nothing clearly until the hospital.”
There were pieces of the night he could never recover by concentrating harder. I understood what chronic pain could do to memory; fear and blood loss complicated it further.
“You don't have to decide which memory is true today,” I said.
His eyes stayed on mine.
“I'm not used to hearing that.”
After he left, I opened the repair estimate for my clinic's compressor. It was high enough to make me feel sick again. I could have asked Salvatore for money. He would probably have given it.
Instead, I applied for a small equipment loan and showed the lender my renewed lease and the practice's actual income. It would take time, and I might be refused, but the clinic needed to survive because it could operate—not because a dangerous man felt grateful to me.
That night, Jonathan called with the documents my landlord had agreed to provide.
The purchase inquiry had been submitted before my house call to Salvatore. I felt a moment of relief. Perhaps Carmine hadn't targeted me after all.
Then Jonathan explained the rest.
For months, the buyer had shown little interest in the building. Two days after the extraction, its representative had submitted an amended offer. The new proposal promised a higher price if the landlord could deliver the property with my clinic vacant.
The date matched the anonymous warning.
I sat very still as Jonathan read the clause to me.
May you like
Someone had not simply noticed that I was vulnerable.
Someone had tried to turn that vulnerability into leverage.
