Chapter 6 - THE BRACE DISAPPEARS
Dominic suspended Arthur from all Vale Trust activity before midnight. He did not fire him from the company yet because Arthur’s testimony and access were too important, but he removed the man from the estate, revoked his credentials and appointed an independent attorney to secure the trust records. Arthur accepted the order without argument. “You should have done it months ago,” he said before leaving, which only made Dominic angrier.
Lucas reacted differently.
He arrived at the estate before breakfast after receiving notice that Arthur’s authority had been frozen. He found Dominic standing near the windows without the brace, using only the cane while Mercer supervised. Lucas’s first expression was concern, but Dominic had known his brother long enough to see the calculation behind it.
“You’re pushing too hard.”
“I walked forty feet.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re ready to fly to three states and run plants.”
“No one asked you.”
Lucas looked toward Mercer. “Doctor?”
Mercer replied, “His functional status has been materially understated in several private summaries.”
Lucas went still.
Dominic watched him understand that the investigation had reached the medical file.
He did not accuse him.
Not yet.
The consequences of Chapter 5 spread fast. Lucas called an emergency board committee and argued Dominic’s sudden reversal on Arthur proved instability rather than recovery. The continuity clause required an independent medical evaluation anyway, so Lucas requested one immediately. Two directors supported him. Another warned that the lakefront portfolio sale could collapse if leadership uncertainty became public.
Dominic heard the shape of the pressure clearly.
Every argument for caution also pushed him toward the deadline.
By afternoon, the company’s lenders requested confirmation that the succession process would not affect the sale. Someone had leaked the trust dispute.
Dominic suspected Lucas.
Lucas blamed Arthur.
Arthur, now barred from the estate, sent Dominic a single text.
Do not let anyone remove the brace.
That warning arrived five minutes too late.
The rehabilitation room was empty.
Dominic’s black brace, laid on the examination table after Mercer removed it that morning, was gone. The storage case remained open. No window had been forced. The exterior doors were secure. Security footage showed the hallway normally until 12:17 p.m., when the image froze for eleven minutes using an administrator command.
This time Arthur’s credential was disabled.
The command came through Dominic’s own estate administrator account.
Dominic had not used it.
The head of security traced the login to a service tablet kept in the staff office. The tablet itself was still there, but someone had wiped the recent local history.
Clare’s fear returned immediately. “Ellie was in the staff hall after lunch.”
Dominic looked at her. “Where is she?”
“With Mrs. Alvarez upstairs.”
Clare left before he finished answering.
They found Ellie safe in the nursery, building a line of wooden locks across the floor. She was irritated because one clasp on her latch board no longer closed properly. Clare took the board and noticed a tiny silver piece wedged beneath a sliding bolt.
“What is this?”
Ellie reached for it. “My shiny thing.”
Dominic crouched.
The object was a small metal pin less than half an inch long.
Ellie explained that it fell onto the floor when Mercer opened Dominic’s brace the previous day. She liked it because it fit inside one of the toy catches, so she picked it up before anyone noticed.
Mercer examined it.
“This isn’t a standard retaining pin.”
Dominic looked at him.
“It came out of the brace?”
“If Ellie is right, yes.”
The stolen brace suddenly mattered less.
Someone had removed the main evidence.
They had overlooked the smallest component.
The chapter’s second escalation came from Clare. Once Ellie was calm, Clare admitted something she had never told Dominic because she feared being fired. She had seen Rebecca Sloan, the vanished care coordinator, using the staff service tablet several times after midnight. Rebecca claimed she was updating medication schedules. Clare once found her inside Dominic’s study corridor carrying a key she immediately put in her pocket.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
Clare’s face tightened.
“Because the last housekeeper who accused an executive guest of going somewhere he shouldn’t was gone two days later. I have a four-year-old daughter and no family money behind me.”
Dominic felt shame because the estate hierarchy he barely noticed had taught Clare exactly how dangerous truth could be.
“Did Rebecca ever speak to Lucas?”
“All the time.”
“Privately?”
“Yes.”
That was still not enough.
The pin could be.
Mercer sent it to Lakeshore Orthotics for identification under independent chain of custody.
An engineer called before evening.
The part had a microscopic maker’s stamp.
NSM-4.
North Shore Medical.
It was not an ordinary brace component.
It belonged to a custom override kit.
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Only twelve such kits had ever been manufactured.
Two were ordered for Dominic Vale.
