Chapter 5 - The File They Removed
Nico rolled away from the library door.
“Tell him I’m unavailable.”
Adeline did not move.
Victor knocked again.
“Dr. Cole drove forty minutes.”
Nico’s voice sharpened.
“He can drive forty minutes back.”
Silence.
Then footsteps.
Adeline opened the curtain.
A black sedan waited in the circular drive.
Dr. Martin Cole stood beside it in a dark overcoat.
Victor joined him.
They spoke for less than a minute.
Then Cole looked straight toward the library window.
Adeline stepped back.
“He knows we’re in here.”
“He knows I live here.”
“He knows where to look.”
Nico’s mouth tightened.
Adeline printed the original report again.
This time it worked.
She placed it beside Cole’s later assessment.
Two different realities.
Sarah Keene: incomplete spinal cord injury, preserved sensation, possible motor recovery.
Martin Cole: functional complete injury, minimal expectation of meaningful neurologic improvement.
Nico tapped the later page.
“Same scans?”
“Yes.”
“Same injury?”
“Yes.”
“Different conclusion.”
“Yes.”
A pulse jumped in his jaw.
“Find Keene.”
Adeline searched.
Dr. Sarah Keene was still practicing.
Private rehabilitation group.
Milwaukee.
She called.
An assistant answered.
Adeline identified herself as Nico’s current nurse.
The line went quiet.
Then:
“Dr. Keene has been instructed not to discuss Mr. Alfieri.”
“By whom?”
“We cannot disclose that.”
“Is there a legal order?”
Another pause.
“I can’t answer.”
The call ended.
Nico stared at the phone.
“Victor.”
“Probably.”
He looked at the page.
“Stop saying probably.”
Adeline faced him.
“Then give me proof.”
He almost snapped back.
Instead, he breathed out.
“Fine.”
That afternoon, she withheld the suspicious medication.
Not all medication.
Only the tablets that did not belong.
Nico knew.
He agreed.
By five, his legs were visibly tighter.
At six, pain climbed.
By seven, sweat darkened the collar of his shirt.
Adeline monitored everything.
Blood pressure.
Respiratory rate.
Muscle tone.
No heroics.
No pretending.
He gripped the therapy bars.
“Again.”
“You’ve done enough.”
“Again.”
“Nico.”
“Again.”
She looked at him.
He looked back.
She adjusted the gait belt.
“Fine.”
He pushed.
His shoulders took most of the weight.
His arms shook.
Nothing happened below the waist.
Then his right quadriceps contracted.
Adeline saw it.
Nico felt it.
His eyes widened.
“Did you—”
“Yes.”
He sat hard.
Breathing fast.
Not from exertion alone.
From rage.
“They knew.”
Adeline crouched.
“We still don’t know how much recovery you can get.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No.”
His hand hit the wheel rim.
“They knew there was something.”
A soft scrape sounded behind the therapy-room door.
Adeline stood.
Opened it.
Nobody.
At the far end of the corridor, the locked east-wing nursery door was closing.
Nico followed her gaze.
“That room has been locked since my mother died.”
“Who has the key?”
“Victor.”
They went there after midnight.
Nico carried the pistol.
Adeline carried a flashlight.
The nursery key was not in the ring Edna kept downstairs.
But the lock was old.
Adeline used a narrow transfer-board edge and pressure from a flat screwdriver.
The latch gave.
Nico stared.
“Should I ask?”
“No.”
The door opened.
Dust.
Covered furniture.
Boxes stacked against one wall.
The first box contained therapy records.
The second contained photographs.
Nico.
Camille.
Victor.
Capos.
Doctors.
Adeline picked up one.
Her own apartment building.
Date stamped three days before she received the job offer.
Under it:
FOURTH NURSE APPROVED.
Her stomach clenched.
Nico pulled another photograph free.
Wes outside his cardiology clinic.
Blue backpack.
Paper crane in his hand.
Same date.
Before Adeline had ever entered the Alfieri house.
Her fingers went cold.
“They knew about him.”
Nico read the note clipped to the photograph.
DEPENDENT COVERAGE: EFFECTIVE LEVERAGE.
He lifted his eyes.
“Adeline.”
She could not answer.
A floorboard creaked outside.
Nico raised the pistol.
The door slammed shut.
May you like
The lock turned from the other side.
Then smoke began sliding under the door.
