Chapter 4 - THE WRONG DAUGHTER
"Who was supposed to die?"
Evelyn said nothing.
Vivienne repeated the question.
This time her voice cut through the room.
"Who was supposed to die in my car?"
Evelyn closed the door.
"The message is designed to turn you against me."
"Answer me."
"Vivienne—"
"Answer."
Evelyn sat slowly.
"Me."
The room seemed to shift.
Vivienne stared.
"What?"
"The car you were driving that night was mine."
Vivienne remembered.
Her own vehicle had been in service.
She had borrowed her mother's old silver sedan.
"I thought your car was sold after you died."
"It was supposed to be."
"You knew the brakes had been sabotaged?"
"Not until years later."
Vivienne looked at Elias.
He seemed equally stunned.
Evelyn continued.
"Fifteen years ago, I discovered the first Meridian transfers."
Vivienne said nothing.
"The money didn't stay inside Hartwell Medical."
"Where did it go?"
"Private clinics."
"What kind?"
"Clinics that didn't officially exist."
Vivienne felt a sickness forming in her stomach.
Meridian had begun with a legitimate goal.
Regenerating damaged nerve tissue.
Then investors arrived.
Military contractors.
Private medical funds.
People who wanted results quickly.
Clinical safeguards became inconvenient.
Patients became numbers.
Charles tried to shut the project down.
Someone on the board refused.
"Who?"
Evelyn's expression darkened.
"Victor Dane."
Vivienne knew Victor well.
Seventy-one.
Vice chairman of Hartwell Medical.
Her father's closest business partner.
The man who had delivered the eulogy at Charles's funeral.
"Uncle Victor?"
"He is not your uncle."
"He held me when Dad died."
"He helped bury the evidence that killed him."
Vivienne stared.
"You think Victor killed Dad?"
"I think Victor has been killing people for twenty years."
Elias stood abruptly.
"That's an accusation we cannot make without proof."
Evelyn turned on him.
"Charles was preparing to remove Victor from the board forty-eight hours before his heart attack."
Vivienne knew her father's official cause of death.
Cardiac arrest.
No autopsy.
Family physician certification.
Seven years ago.
Adrian had handled the funeral arrangements.
Vivienne's mouth went dry.
"Who was Dad's doctor?"
Nobody answered.
She already knew.
Dr. Raymond Cole.
Adrian's longtime friend.
The same physician who had managed Vivienne's post-accident rehabilitation.
Her blood ran cold.
"Get me my medical records."
Elias nodded.
"All of them."
"Already requested."
"No."
Vivienne looked at him.
"Not copies from the hospital."
"The originals."
Elias understood.
If the system was compromised, digital records meant nothing.
By afternoon, Vivienne was transferred to a private Hartwell-owned rehabilitation facility under an alias.
Only four people knew the location.
Vivienne.
Evelyn.
Elias.
Detective Ortiz.
At 6:20 p.m., a neurologist named Dr. Naomi Chen entered the room carrying a stack of old scans.
Vivienne had requested someone with no previous connection to Hartwell Medical.
Naomi studied her quietly.
"I need to ask something that may upset you."
Vivienne almost laughed.
"My husband poisoned me yesterday."
"Fair point."
Naomi placed two scans beside each other.
"These are from the first week after your accident."
"And?"
"Your injury was severe."
Vivienne nodded.
"But?"
"But the diagnosis of permanent complete paraplegia doesn't match what I'm seeing."
Vivienne stopped.
Naomi pointed to the scan.
"You had an incomplete spinal cord injury."
"What does that mean?"
"It means no ethical physician should have promised you'd walk again."
Vivienne absorbed that.
"But?"
"No ethical physician should have told you recovery was impossible either."
Vivienne's face went still.
For five years, Adrian had repeated one sentence whenever she considered experimental rehabilitation.
Don't torture yourself with false hope.
Her doctors agreed.
Her physical therapy was gradually reduced.
Her specialists changed.
Her world got smaller.
"Could I have recovered?"
Naomi chose her words carefully.
"Possibly some function."
"How much?"
"No one can know."
"Why did my doctors say zero?"
"I don't know."
Vivienne looked down at her legs.
For the first time in years, she hated them not because they didn't move.
She hated every person who might have lied about why.
Naomi turned another page.
"There's something else."
"Of course there is."
"Your medication history."
Vivienne frowned.
"What about it?"
"For almost three years after your accident, you were prescribed a muscle relaxant at an unusually high dosage."
"I had spasms."
"This medication can reduce spasticity."
"So?"
"It can also interfere with certain forms of rehabilitation when dosed aggressively."
Vivienne looked up.
"Are you saying somebody kept me weaker than I needed to be?"
"I'm saying your treatment choices deserve investigation."
Evelyn stood near the window.
Her face had gone rigid.
Naomi continued.
"I also found something in your bloodwork from the first year after your accident."
Vivienne waited.
"A sedative."
"Which one?"
"One you were never prescribed."
The room fell silent.
Then Vivienne understood.
"My accident didn't just put me in a wheelchair."
Naomi said nothing.
Vivienne looked toward her mother.
"Someone made sure I stayed there."
And behind them, Evelyn's phone began ringing.
May you like
She checked the screen.
Victor Dane.
