Jennings leaned against the doorframe, swirling his drink. "Am I interrupting a family reunion?"
Buffy ran up the stairs, breathless. She grabbed Jennings' arm. "Jennings, darling, thank God you're here. This trash is harassing Grandfather, she's probably poisoned him!"
Bronwyn felt a sharp stab in her chest seeing Buffy touch him. His fiancée. Of course they were. They were the same species.
"He's stroking out, you idiot," Bronwyn snapped, already moving. "It's the aneurysm. It's dissecting."
Jennings looked at Bronwyn, then at the gasping old man on the floor. "Is that so? The vet tech is a neurosurgeon now?"
"Get him on the desk. Now! And get me my kit!" Bronwyn commanded, her voice leaving no room for argument.
"She's insane!" Buffy shrieked. "She's trying to kill you! Call an ambulance!"
Jennings pushed off the doorframe. He walked over to Elsworth, checked his pulse, and saw the tell-tale sign of facial drooping. He looked at Bronwyn's hands. The hands he had seen inside a man's abdomen just hours ago.
"Do it," Jennings said.
The room went silent.
"What?" Buffy gasped.
"An ambulance won't make it in time, and you know it," Jennings said, his eyes locked on Bronwyn's. "I saw her work today. She's not a vet tech. She's a surgeon."
Elsworth was fading. He looked from Jennings to Bronwyn, a silent plea in his terrified eyes. He was a gambling man. And he was terrified of dying.
Buffy's bodyguard handed Bronwyn her case of scalpels. She opened it, the black ceramic instruments gleaming under the lamplight. Without hesitation, she used the edge of the heavy oak desk to steady his head, took a scalpel, and made a precise, shallow incision at the base of his skull to relieve the pressure.
Jennings watched her. There was respect in his eyes now. Reluctant, but real.
"You have ten minutes until he bleeds out internally," Jennings whispered as she worked. "Don't disappoint me. I'm betting on you."
Bronwyn didn't look up from her work, her hands a blur of terrifying grace.
Inside, Buffy was already on the phone in the corner. "Victoria? It's Buffy. She's back. We need to do something."
Jennings stood by the desk, watching Bronwyn save the life of the man he was planning to ruin. He pulled out his phone.
"Get me everything on the underground surgeon known as 'The Ghost.' Cross-reference any known activity with Bronwyn Brewer's timeline for the last five years," he ordered his assistant. "And find out what my fiancée, Buffy Patrick, knows about her."
Bronwyn worked on, thinking she had just made a deal for her brother's life.
