Chapter 14: A Dying Man's Pulse

Mara's POV

The cardiologist arrived at ten on Thursday with a leather bag and a portable monitor.

Aldo walked him in himself, one hand on the man's shoulder.

Lucian was already in the study chair with a blanket over his knees and the cane laid across the arm.

His face was grey.

I had done that with a cold shower at dawn and nothing to eat since Tuesday.

At seven I had also given him one small tablet that slows the heart, from a bottle I'd brought back from the Court Street clinic.

It was an ordinary, legal drug, in a safe dose, and by ten his pulse sat at forty-six.

I stood by the window, where a mistress would stand.

"Don Ruggiero," the cardiologist said. "I've read nine opinions. I'd like to hear for myself."

"Hear," said Lucian, and shut his eyes.

The man set the cold disc of the stethoscope on his chest and listened for a long time.

I watched his face, barely daring to breathe.

He frowned once, at the slow beat, and then he nodded at it.

"Rate in the forties," he said. "Weak. Consistent with the earlier records."

Aldo gave a small nod.

"And the medicines?" the cardiologist said. He looked straight at me. "Miss, I'm told you give them."

"I put them out," I said. "He swallows them."

"Which ones?"

"The little white ones in the morning. Two at night."

"Any digoxin?"

The word hung in the room.

"No," I said. "No digitalis. The family doctor stopped it in the summer."

I had said digitalis.

A girlfriend does not say digitalis.

Aldo's head turned an inch toward me.

Lucian opened his eyes and said, in a thin, tired voice, "She reads the labels. She has nothing else to do, with me."

Aldo laughed shortly.

The cardiologist smiled and wrote something on his pad.

"A careful girl," he said. "Good. He needs one."

He wrote the report in the study, at Lucian's desk.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Brought the Don Back to Burn My Husband from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.