Chapter 4 - THE MAN I TRUSTED WITH MY BODY
Dr. Harold Vance was seventy-one.
He arrived at my home expecting coffee.
He got lawyers.
His face changed immediately.
“Daniel.”
“Sit.”
He did.
I placed the missing-report reference in front of him.
“You remember this?”
He looked.
Too long.
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
Wrong answer.
“Try again.”
“Daniel—”
“Elena says threatening old men is bad for my recovery.”
Elena, sitting beside me, sighed.
“I did not phrase it like that.”
Vance swallowed.
“I recommended conservative management.”
“That wasn't my question.”
He looked toward my attorney.
Then:
“The test showed incomplete conduction.”
My hands tightened.
“And?”
“We didn't know what functional recovery that would produce.”
“Did you show me?”
Silence.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Your father—”
My chest went cold.
“My father was dead.”
Vance looked down.
“Vincent.”
There.
Elena stopped moving.
“Vincent what?”
Vance's voice became thin.
“He believed repeated experimental treatment was destabilizing you.”
“So he controlled my medical file?”
“He controlled payment authorizations.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
Vance began sweating.
“To emphasize realistic outcomes.”
I almost laughed.
“Realistic.”
“Yes.”
“By hiding test results?”
“He thought hope was making you reckless.”
Five years.
Five years of accepting a future someone else had selected.
My voice became quiet.
“What did he pay you?”
Vance looked up sharply.
That answered before words.
“Nothing directly.”
“Indirectly.”
His consulting company had received more than eight hundred thousand dollars from a Whitaker subsidiary over five years.
Marcus had already found it.
Vance's face collapsed.
“I never believed you'd walk normally.”
“Maybe I won't.”
I leaned closer.
“That was never your decision to make.”
Silence.
I had him removed.
Not harmed.
Removed.
Medical-board investigation.
Lawyers.
Documentation.
Old Daniel would've solved the problem differently.
Maybe paralysis had taught me one useful thing.
Loss of control was not permission to steal control from someone else.
Then Marcus entered.
He carried a sealed evidence bag.
Inside:
A small black diagnostic module.
“Recovered from Michael Reed's storage unit.”
Sophie Reed's father had kept the counterfeit brake module.
May you like
And taped beneath it was a handwritten note.
If anything happens to me, ask why Vincent ordered the original destroyed.
