Chapter 17: Gate Nine

Teterboro was twelve minutes from the house, and Benny made it in eight.

My phone rang on the Turnpike.

It was the emergency doctor with the grey braid, and her voice was low and fast.

"I wasn't going to call until the morning," she said. "But you said it was urgent. The lab ran both samples."

"And?"

"The tea and your sister's blood contain the same compound. It ends pregnancies, Mrs. Ferrante. It isn't something you take by accident."

I closed my eyes.

"I have to file a report with the police by law," she said. "I'll do it at six a.m."

"Thank you."

"Whoever did this, I want them stopped," she said. "Don't let me down."

She hung up.

Dominic looked at me across the back seat, and I nodded once.

"We have until six," I said.

"We have until midnight," said Benny, and took the next exit on two wheels.

At the end of a long fenced road there was a gate with a nine painted on it.

A man in an airport vest waited beside it with a flashlight.

"My cousin," Benny said, and the man waved the car through without a word.

The apron was a wide, cold square of concrete lit by tall lamps.

A white jet sat at the far end with its stairs down and its lights on.

At the foot of the stairs stood four people.

A man of about sixty in a camel coat held a leather briefcase against his chest with both arms.

Beside him was a small grey woman in a fur collar, and a younger couple holding two bags.

Two pilots in uniform stood a little apart.

A flight attendant waited on the steps with a tray of glasses.

The man in the camel coat was the Brancato family doctor.

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