Chapter 3 - Eighteen
"What is Vehicle Eighteen?" I asked.
Isabella turned her wheelchair toward me. "A wheelchair-accessible van. Your father's last assignment."
My dad had worked for Harborline Mobility for nineteen years. He inspected lifts, seat restraints, and the mechanisms that kept wheelchairs from shifting during transit. Six weeks earlier, an equipment failure in the maintenance yard had knocked him off a raised platform. He'd landed badly. His supervisor called it carelessness. The insurance company used a nicer word: disputed.
Dad had called me from the emergency room and said, "Don't let Sophie see me like this."
He never mentioned the van number.
"Harborline operates the BridgeLine rides," Vincent explained. "The nonprofit pays for transportation to clinics, therapy appointments, and dialysis. My family's foundation helps fund it."
"And Victoria?"
Isabella's mouth tightened. "Her company owns Harborline. She wants the contract renewed Friday. I asked the board to wait for an inspection."
I looked back toward the ballroom. The chandeliers were glittering, the champagne was flowing, and somewhere beyond the doors Victoria was still a woman people were afraid to disappoint.
"She was going to slap you over a contract?"
"She was going to make me look unstable," Isabella said. "An old woman in a wheelchair. Difficult. Confused. Unfit to question anyone."
Vincent showed me the message. BridgeLine dispatch had received an alert that Van 18 had been assigned an early-morning medical pickup. The vehicle had been flagged out of service after Dad's accident. A manager had cleared the flag that afternoon.
"Can't you cancel it?" I asked.
"We can notify the operator and transit authorities, but we don't control dispatch," Vincent said.
I called Dad. He answered on the fourth ring.
"Emma? Are you home?"
"Not yet. Dad, was it Van Eighteen?"
There was a long silence. In the background I heard the steady beep of his hospital monitor.
"Who told you that?"
"Isabella Moretti. She says the van is running again."
His breathing changed. "Listen carefully, sweetheart. If they're using Eighteen, nobody should be riding in it."
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"Why?"
"Because the lift wasn't the only thing they covered up."
