Chapter 4: A Wheelchair Turned on Its Side
Claire’s wrist was still caught in my hand when I looked past her toward Nicholas. The wheelchair lay on its side several feet away, one wheel turning slowly before stopping. Nicholas was on the marble beside it, his white shirt pulled crooked across his broad shoulders. One cufflink was missing. It rested near the edge of the medication tray, small and bright against the pale floor.
The room held two different kinds of evidence. The plastic bag in my left hand contained the tablets I had taken from the tray. The overturned chair and Nicholas’s position showed what had happened to his body. Claire stood between both facts and me, silver fabric gathered around her legs, her face still tight with the rage that had brought her hand down.
My name is Hannah Reed, and I was the nurse assigned to Nicholas Valenti that evening.
I loosened my grip only when Claire stopped pulling against it. I did not step away. With my free hand, I crouched beside Nicholas without lifting him or shifting his legs. The marble pressed cold through the knees of my scrubs. I watched his chest rise beneath the white shirt. I watched his eyes remain open. I checked his face, his hands, and the line of his body as they were, leaving the space between him and the wheelchair untouched.
The medication tray sat behind me, one corner tipped upward. Several tablets had scattered across the floor. The evidence bag crackled in my hand whenever I moved. I kept it raised enough for Claire to see and low enough that I would not drop it while studying Nicholas.
Claire took one step forward.
I extended my arm across the space between us. The gesture was quiet, but it made the boundary clear. She stopped with her bare foot just short of the scattered medication. Her gaze moved from the bag to the wheelchair, then down to the cufflink.
For the first time, the anger on her face had to share room with calculation.
I reached into the pocket of my scrubs for my phone. My fingers were unsteady, so I held it against my palm until they settled. I opened the camera without moving closer to the objects. From where I knelt, I recorded the foyer as it stood: Nicholas on the marble, the wheelchair turned on its side, the medication tray behind me, the loose tablets, and the cufflink separated from his shirt. I took several still images from the same position, then one of the evidence bag in my hand with the tablets visible through the plastic.
I did not claim to know how the chair had fallen. I did not claim to know how the cufflink had reached the floor. I recorded only their places and the distance between them. The arrangement mattered because Claire could not make the foyer appear ordinary while Nicholas remained beside a fallen wheelchair.
She moved toward the tray.
I rose halfway, keeping myself between her and the medication. Claire stopped again. Her shoulders squared, and her hand lifted—not high enough to strike, but high enough to remind me how quickly the scene could turn. Nicholas’s fingers tightened against the marble.
I looked at him, then at the path leading deeper into the mansion. He needed to be beyond Claire’s reach, but moving him carelessly could erase the position that now spoke for him. The choice narrowed to two duties that could not wait: preserve what the foyer showed, and get Nicholas somewhere Claire could not control with her body alone.
I lowered the phone but kept the recording open. The evidence bag remained visible in my other hand. Claire watched me, waiting for me to choose one mistake over the other.
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Behind her, the foyer door stood closed.
I shifted my weight toward Nicholas, preparing to help him without disturbing the wheelchair, and Claire turned toward the door as if she had finally decided who she wanted to bring into the room.
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