Chương 6
“He’s in the guest wing,” Caleb said.
“By choice?”
“No.”
“Then before I examine you, I need it stated clearly that I’m not participating in imprisonment.”
“You’re participating in medicine.”
“That answer is why I left organized medicine for a clinic where my patients don’t threaten people.”
“You didn’t leave. You were forced out.”
She looked at Ruth.
Ruth spread her hands. “He was always like this.”
Price set her bag on the library table.
Caleb expected curiosity when she saw Lily. Instead, she asked Mara to take the child elsewhere before beginning the examination.
“She stays,” Caleb said.
“No,” Price replied.
The bluntness surprised him.
“She has already seen more than this.”
“She does not need to watch an adult man discover the limits of his body. Neither do your guards.”
Caleb glanced at Dario.
“Out.”
When the room was empty except for Price and Ruth, the doctor pulled the blanket away.
Caleb had not allowed a stranger to see his legs in years. They were thinner than the rest of him, the muscles wasted beneath pale skin. His right knee angled inward. A red pressure mark had formed near the ankle.
Price touched his foot with a cold metal instrument.
“Tell me when you feel anything.”
At first there was nothing. Then a dull pressure near the arch.
He said so.
She moved upward.
Sensation came and went without pattern. A sharp touch at his calf felt like warmth. Pressure near his knee seemed to appear in his hip.
Price tested reflexes, muscle tone, and resistance. She placed her palm beneath his right foot.
“Push.”
He concentrated.
Nothing.
“Again.”
A tremor passed through his thigh.
Ruth inhaled sharply.
Price did not react. “Again.”
His heel pressed faintly against her hand.
Caleb looked away.
“Voluntary contraction,” Price said. “Weak, but present.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could I have done that seven years ago?”
“Possibly.”
He looked at her.
Price sat back on her heels. “Your original injury was serious. I never promised recovery. The cord was compressed and damaged. But it was not cleanly severed, no matter what Venn told the press. You had preserved reflexes and intermittent sensory response.”
“Why didn’t I know?”
“I told you.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You were receiving enough sedative medication to put down a horse.”
Ruth folded her arms.
Price continued. “Your pump dose is extremely high for your current weight. That doesn’t prove malice. Patients develop tolerance. Spasticity can become dangerous. But the missing records, the lack of reassessment, and the absence of meaningful rehabilitation are indefensible.”
“Can the medication prevent movement?”
“It can worsen weakness, sedation, balance, and motor control. Years without therapy can do more damage. None of this means stopping suddenly will make you stand.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
Price saw it.
“You may never walk independently,” she said. “Your foot moving is not a miracle. It is information. That’s all.”
“What do we do?”
“We admit you to a facility with intensive monitoring, reduce the dose slowly, repeat imaging, evaluate the pump, and begin rehabilitation.”
“No hospital controlled by Victor.”
“Then find one he doesn’t control.”
Ruth said, “That is a shorter list than it should be.”
Price lowered Caleb’s trouser leg.
“There is another problem. Your reservoir needs refilling within nine days. If the concentration is what Venn claims, you have time. If Mara is right and it’s four times stronger, the estimates on the programmer are useless.”
Caleb looked toward the closed library door.
“Can you test the fluid?”
“Yes. With proper equipment.”
“Do it here.”
“This is a mansion, not a neurology unit.”
“It has a private surgical suite.”
Price stared at him.
Ruth said, “Don’t ask.”
The surgical room had been built after the accident so Caleb could receive procedures without leaving the estate. Price inspected it and declared half the equipment outdated, the sterilization logs sloppy, and the emergency plan nonexistent.
Venn was brought downstairs under guard.
He entered with his tie removed and his expression carefully insulted.
Price did not greet him.
She held up the pump records he had written overnight. “These dosage changes make no sense.”
“They were clinically indicated.”
“Based on what assessments?”
“My assessments.”
“You increased intrathecal baclofen eleven times in eighteen months while documenting reduced spasticity.”
“His pain remained severe.”
“Baclofen is not a general pain medication.”
Venn looked at Caleb. “This is a professional disagreement being used to support paranoia.”
Price placed the papers on the table. “Then you’ll welcome an assay of the reservoir.”
Venn’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Caleb saw it.
“So,” Caleb said, “will I die if she samples it?”
“No.”
“Will I die if she lowers it?”
“Not if done correctly.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
Venn adjusted his cuff.
Price opened a sterile package.
Venn said, “If you proceed without full records, I will not accept responsibility for the consequences.”
“You stopped accepting responsibility years ago,” Price said.
The sample was drawn under ultrasound guidance and sealed for delivery to a university toxicology laboratory. Ruth arranged the courier. Dario assigned two men to accompany it.
Caleb changed the order.
“Send one man,” he said. “Give the second case to someone else.”
Dario frowned. “Second case?”
Caleb nodded toward two identical insulated containers. “One contains the sample. One contains water. You decide which guard gets which.”
“You don’t trust them.”
“I don’t trust your decision.”
Dario’s nostrils flared.
For a moment, the old friendship surfaced—not warmth, but offense. Dario had taken bullets for Caleb. Caleb had paid for Dario’s mother’s house, his sister’s surgery, and his son’s college tuition. They had mistaken accumulated debt for loyalty because neither knew what else to call it.
Dario picked up both cases.
“You used to look a man in the eye before deciding he betrayed you.”
“I used to stand when I did it.”
Dario left without answering.
May you like
That evening, Caleb found Lily in the corridor outside Audrey’s bedroom.
The door was locked. She sat cross-legged on the floor with the teddy bear beside her and a book open across her lap.
