Chapter 1 - THE CHILD WHO DIDN’T LAUGH
“I’ll wash your feet, and then you’ll walk again.”
The room exploded with laughter.
Massimo Rinaldi did not.
Three-year-old Nina Bennett stood in front of him with a pink plastic basin clutched in both hands.
Dean Foster leaned against the bar and smirked. “You hear that, boss? We can fire the neurologists.”
Camille Ashwood gave a thin laugh. “Nina, sweetheart, Mr. Rinaldi needs real doctors.”
Nina frowned at her. “He needs his feet to wake up.”
Carla Bennett hurried in from the hallway. “Nina, honey, I told you not to bother Mr. Rinaldi.”
“You didn’t bother me,” Massimo said.
The laughter died.
Carla stopped.
Massimo looked at Nina. “Go ahead, doctor.”
Nina beamed.
She set the basin down, rolled her sleeves up with fierce concentration, then lifted one of Massimo’s feet into the warm water. To everyone else, it was a child’s game. To Nina, it was a mission.
“Too hot?” she asked.
“I can’t feel it.”
“You will.”
Massimo almost smiled.
Across the room, Dr. Julian Hale snapped his medical case shut. “No sensation below the injury remains a consistent finding. I’m sorry, Massimo. There is no clinical reason to expect meaningful recovery.”
No recovery.
No walking.
No miracle.
Nina reached into the pocket of her cotton dress for the little lavender bottle Carla used in the water.
Instead, a white pill rolled into her palm.
She stared at it.
Dr. Hale stared too.
His face changed.
Only for a second.
But Massimo saw it.
“Where did you get that?” Hale asked.
Nina closed her fist.
“Found it.”
“Give it to me.”
She backed away.
Hale stepped toward her much too quickly.
Massimo’s voice cut through the room.
“Doctor.”
Hale froze.
Massimo held out his hand to Nina. “Let me see.”
Nina placed the pill in his palm.
It was small. White. Unmarked on one side. A faint blue line crossed the other.
Hale forced a smile. “It’s probably one of my muscle relaxants. I must have dropped it yesterday.”
“Probably?” Massimo asked.
Dean chuckled. “Come on. It’s a pill, not a bomb.”
Massimo kept watching Hale.
The doctor’s forehead had gone shiny.
Then Nina put both little hands around Massimo’s ankle.
“Wake up,” she whispered to his foot.
And under the warm water, Massimo felt something he had not felt in six months.
Pain.
Sharp. Tiny. Impossible.
May you like
His toes moved.
Dr. Hale went white.
