Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO THREATENED BOONE
Genevieve did not let Kessler take the brace.
Instead, she hired a private forensic engineering firm.
That was the smart decision.
The next one wasn’t.
Forty-eight hours after Piper left the hospital, Genevieve arrived at Halloway’s Garage in a white Bentley.
Alone.
Boone was replacing brake pads on a landscaping truck.
She walked inside in a cream suit that probably cost more than the truck.
“You created this.”
Boone did not turn.
“Morning.”
“My daughter refuses to wear any medical device.”
Boone tightened a bolt.
“Probably needs a break.”
“She canceled therapy.”
“Maybe she’s tired.”
“She fired her neurologist.”
That made him turn.
“Good for her.”
Genevieve’s eyes flashed.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
“You entered our lives for forty minutes and now my daughter believes everyone who ever treated her was lying.”
Boone set the wrench down.
“I didn’t tell her that.”
“You told her the brace was wrong.”
“It was.”
“You encouraged this investigation.”
“The brace tried to throw her on the floor.”
Genevieve stepped closer.
“Do you understand what you’ve done?”
Boone looked around his garage.
“Apparently ruined your Thursday.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I spent eleven years keeping my daughter alive.”
“No.”
That word stopped her.
“You spent eleven years trying to make her better.”
Boone continued.
“Not the same thing.”
Genevieve stared.
“You know nothing about what happened after that accident.”
“Then tell me.”
She went silent.
The crash happened when Piper was eight.
Genevieve had been driving.
A tire blew on Interstate 10.
The SUV rolled twice.
Genevieve escaped with a broken collarbone.
Piper fractured two vertebrae.
Her husband, Thomas Larkin, died at the scene.
There.
Boone understood.
Guilt.
Not ordinary guilt.
The kind people with money tried to beat by purchasing solutions.
Genevieve said quietly, “She asked me after surgery if she would walk again.”
Boone listened.
“I promised her yes.”
“You couldn’t know.”
“I was her mother.”
“That still doesn’t make you God.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You are very comfortable insulting me.”
“I’m comfortable telling people things they don’t want to hear.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She looked toward his office.
The leather notebook lay on the desk.
“You think you could do better.”
Boone frowned.
“What?”
“The design.”
“I think her brace is wrong.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Boone looked at the old sketches.
“No.”
Genevieve almost smiled.
“Finally.”
“I think I could make something better for Piper.”
Her smile vanished.
“You’re a mechanic.”
“And you keep saying that like metal behaves differently in hospitals.”
Genevieve’s voice turned cold.
“You have no license.”
“Correct.”
“No degree.”
“Correct.”
“No clinical training.”
“Correct.”
“And yet you have somehow convinced my daughter your garage is safer than one of the best rehabilitation institutes in the world.”
“No.”
Boone stepped closer.
“Your daughter convinced herself because she finally found somebody who said ‘that hurts’ matters.”
Genevieve’s face changed.
He regretted the cruelty almost immediately.
Almost.
She said:
“If you touch my daughter’s medical care without authorization, I will bury this garage.”
Boone stared.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The billionaire.”
“Do not test me.”
“My mother died owing seventeen thousand dollars in medical bills.”
Genevieve stopped.
“I live behind a garage with a roof that leaks every August.”
He gestured around them.
“You can sue me, buy this land, destroy my credit, and probably have somebody repossess my dog if I had one.”
He stepped closer.
“But none of that makes the hinge straight.”
Silence.
Genevieve turned.
At the garage entrance stood Piper.
She had arrived in a rideshare.
No brace.
Wheelchair.
Genevieve went pale.
“Piper.”
“I heard that.”
Her mother’s expression collapsed.
Piper rolled inside.
“To be fair, threatening to destroy his life was a little dramatic.”
Genevieve closed her eyes.
“You should not be here alone.”
“I’m nineteen.”
“You fell four days ago.”
“Because of the device you want me to trust.”
Genevieve flinched.
Piper looked at Boone.
“I want to see the notebook.”
He hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I looked up your design.”
“You what?”
“The joint concept.”
Piper placed a tablet on the workbench.
“I sent pictures to a biomechanics professor at ASU.”
Boone stared.
“You photographed my notebook?”
“You left it open.”
“That’s theft with extra steps.”
Piper smiled.
“The professor said the concept resembles polycentric orthotic joints used in advanced prosthetics.”
Boone looked at Genevieve.
She looked annoyed that Piper had independently verified him.
Piper continued.
“He also said your adjustable load-transfer track is interesting.”
“Interesting is professor language for probably stupid.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“He wants to meet you.”
Boone laughed.
“No.”
Piper stared.
“No?”
“I fix engines.”
“You spent a year designing this.”
“For my mother.”
“And then stopped because she died.”
Boone’s face hardened.
Piper saw she had pushed too far.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked toward Mabel’s chair.
“I couldn’t help her.”
Piper’s voice softened.
“Maybe you can help someone else.”
Genevieve immediately said, “No.”
Piper turned.
“This is my body.”
“And he is unqualified.”
“Then we get qualified people involved.”
Genevieve stared.
Piper looked back at Boone.
“I don’t want you practicing medicine.”
“Excellent.”
“I want you in the room while engineers look at what you heard.”
Boone frowned.
“Why?”
“Because every expensive person in my life missed it.”
The answer was too honest to dismiss.
Genevieve looked between them.
Then sighed.
“What exactly are you proposing?”
Piper answered.
“Independent evaluation.”
“No Kessler.”
“Boone present.”
“ASU engineering.”
“A new rehab team.”
“And no device adjustment unless I approve it.”
Genevieve stared at her daughter.
There was fear in her face.
Not anger.
Fear of not controlling the outcome.
Piper saw it.
“Mom.”
Genevieve looked at her.
“You cannot buy certainty.”
That sentence broke something.
Genevieve sat on the old wooden chair.
Mabel’s chair.
Boone almost told her not to.
Then didn’t.
She whispered, “I know.”
Piper’s expression softened.
“Do you?”
Genevieve looked at her daughter.
“For eleven years I thought if I stopped searching, it meant I had given up on you.”
Piper rolled closer.
“Maybe I needed you to stop searching and sit beside me.”
Genevieve began crying.
Boone looked away.
Some conversations deserved privacy.
Then a black sedan stopped across the highway.
Boone noticed because nobody came inside.
Tinted windows.
Engine running.
He watched.
Piper followed his gaze.
“What?”
“Nothing yet.”
Genevieve wiped her eyes.
Boone stepped toward the open garage door.
The sedan drove away.
On the ground where it had been parked lay an envelope.
Boone walked across the road.
Inside was a photograph.
His garage.
Taken that morning.
Piper beside him.
On the back:
MECHANICS SHOULD STICK TO CARS.
Boone returned.
Genevieve read it.
Her entire expression changed.
No longer guilty mother.
Billionaire.
Dangerously calm.
“Who knows you’re here?”
Piper whispered, “Just us.”
Genevieve looked at Boone.
“You were right about one thing.”
“Which?”
“They don’t want the brace back.”
May you like
She held up the photograph.
“They want everyone to stop looking at it.”
