Chapter 2 - THE TOE THAT MOVED
Gabriel stopped taking the pills that night.
He told no one.
Not Pierce.
Not Vivian.
Not Marcus.
Not even Claire.
For the first forty-eight hours, nothing happened.
On the third morning, pain arrived.
It began below his hips like electricity trapped beneath the skin.
By noon his legs were burning.
By evening he was sweating through his shirt.
Pierce called it a bad day.
Gabriel called it evidence.
“You should increase the medication,” Pierce said.
“I'll consider it.”
Pierce studied him.
Gabriel had hidden the original tablets and replaced them with harmless vitamins Lena had prepared to look similar.
He swallowed one in front of Pierce.
The doctor relaxed.
Another piece of evidence.
That evening Emma returned with her basin.
Claire followed.
“Not tonight,” Claire said. “Mr. DeLuca needs rest.”
Emma frowned.
“Feet need bath.”
“Emma.”
Gabriel lifted a hand.
“It's fine.”
Claire looked at him.
“You're in pain.”
“How do you know?”
“You're holding your jaw differently.”
The observation surprised him.
Most people watched his hands because they feared what he might do with them.
Claire watched his face.
Emma filled the basin.
Warm water covered his ankles.
“Too hot?” Claire asked.
Gabriel almost said he couldn't tell.
Then stopped.
Because he could.
“Add cold water.”
Claire froze.
“What?”
“It's too warm.”
Her eyes dropped toward his feet.
“You can feel it?”
“Some.”
Emma grinned.
“Told you.”
Gabriel looked down.
“Don't become arrogant, Doctor.”
“I am three.”
“Exactly.”
Emma began rubbing his right foot.
Gabriel watched without expectation.
Then his big toe moved.
Barely.
A twitch.
Claire gasped.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
“Do that again,” she whispered.
He tried.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
His heart sank.
Then—
movement.
A fraction of an inch.
But voluntary.
Gabriel stared at his foot.
Claire covered her mouth.
Emma clapped.
“He woke up!”
Gabriel felt something he had spent seven months killing inside himself.
Hope.
It terrified him more than despair.
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“Nobody hears about this.”
Her smile vanished.
“Why?”
“Because I don't know who I can trust.”
Her eyes searched his.
“Can you trust me?”
He looked at Emma.
Then back at Claire.
“I think so.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No,” Gabriel said.
“It isn't.”
Claire stood.
“Then figure it out.”
She took Emma's hand.
Gabriel caught her wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough.
Claire looked down.
“I trust her,” he said, nodding toward Emma.
Claire almost smiled.
“She can't keep a secret.”
“I have noticed.”
“I told Grandma Mommy snores,” Emma volunteered.
“I do not.”
“You do.”
Gabriel released Claire.
“Then perhaps don't tell her.”
That night, he told Claire everything.
The pills.
The laboratory.
Pierce.
Marcus's reaction.
Claire listened in silence.
When he finished, she whispered, “Why would they want you unable to walk?”
“That's what we're going to find out.”
“We?”
“You can leave with Emma tomorrow.”
Claire's face hardened.
“That wasn't my question.”
“This is dangerous.”
“I understood that when men with guns searched my purse before breakfast.”
“Claire.”
“My husband died in an accident. I lost our apartment six months later. I've spent two years trying to make sure Emma doesn't realize how frightened I've been every single day.”
She leaned toward him.
“Don't mistake quiet for fragile.”
Gabriel looked at her for a long time.
“All right.”
“All right what?”
“We.”
Three nights later, they discovered the first real clue.
Claire was cleaning Pierce's temporary examination room when she found a receipt beneath a cabinet.
A pharmacy.
Cash payment.
Different name.
Twenty bottles of the muscle relaxant.
Gabriel studied the date.
One day before the ambush.
Claire whispered, “They bought the medication before you were shot.”
Gabriel looked at her.
Which meant his paralysis had never been an opportunity.
It had been part of the plan.
Then an alarm sounded downstairs.
A guard shouted.
They reached the library to find a body on the floor.
Dr. Pierce.
A bullet through his chest.
And written beside him in blood were two letters.
M.V.
May you like
Marcus Vale.
---
