Chapter 7 - THE SECOND BRACE
The second brace had never appeared in Dominic’s medical inventory.
North Shore Medical’s records showed two identical modified assemblies delivered to the Vale estate six months earlier under the same family-office purchase order. One became the brace Dominic wore. The second was listed as a “backup therapeutic unit,” but Mercer had never requested a backup and the estate rehabilitation staff had never logged one.
Dominic’s first objective was simple: find it before Lucas or Rebecca Sloan did.
The shipping record identified the receiving signature as C. Hayes.
Clare stared at the page.
“I never signed this.”
The signature resembled her name badly enough to pass casual inspection but not close scrutiny. Clare had been used because household staff routinely received deliveries and because blaming a housekeeper would be convenient if the order ever surfaced. Dominic saw the realization humiliate her and immediately said, “No one here thinks you authorized medical equipment.”
Clare looked at him. “Someone expected that maybe they would.”
That was exactly the point.
They searched service storage, medical closets and the basement receiving rooms. Ellie was kept upstairs this time, though she protested because she wanted her latch board back after Mercer sent the silver pin for examination. The missing brace was not in the estate.
Then Clare remembered a delivery she had found strange months earlier. A long black medical case arrived at the service entrance, stayed overnight and disappeared the next morning before regular inventory. Rebecca Sloan personally told staff it contained therapy calibration equipment.
Security archives still held loading-dock footage.
At 6:22 a.m. the next day, Lucas’s driver carried the black case to a company SUV.
Lucas himself was visible in the back seat.
The evidence connected him directly to the backup brace.
Dominic finally confronted his brother with one fact, not the entire investigation. “Why did your driver remove a second orthopedic brace from my house?”
Lucas looked at the still image and did not deny the case.
“I took it to a specialist.”
“Which one?”
“I’d have to check.”
“You didn’t tell Mercer.”
“Mercer was letting you rush recovery.”
“You ordered medical equipment under forged authorization?”
Lucas’s expression hardened. “You’re building a criminal story around a family trying to keep you from destroying yourself.”
There it was again.
Protection.
Dominic pressed. “Where is Rebecca Sloan?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer came too quickly.
Dominic ended the conversation before anger gave Lucas more information.
The chapter’s mid-point reward came from Lakeshore’s manufacturing records. The second custom brace was not simply a backup. Its stop plate had an even narrower compression range, meaning that if reversed, it could cause pain and numbness much faster than the brace Dominic wore. The engineer described it as inappropriate for Dominic’s diagnosis.
“What would happen if I used it during a walking evaluation?” Dominic asked.
Mercer answered, “You would probably fail.”
The succession review required an independent functional test.
Someone had prepared a brace capable of producing failure on demand.
That made the upcoming evaluation part of the scheme, not merely a deadline.
The story expanded through Clare.
She returned to the service entrance logs and noticed Rebecca Sloan visited the estate on three days after officially resigning. Each time she signed in under different reasons: retrieving personal files, dropping medication records, meeting Lucas’s assistant. On the most recent visit, Ellie had been playing in the staff lounge with her latch board.
Clare asked her daughter whether she remembered Rebecca.
Ellie nodded.
“The lady with the red nails.”
“Did you see her take anything?”
Ellie thought carefully.
“She had Mr. Dominic’s black leg.”
Clare looked at Dominic.
“Which day?”
Ellie did not know dates, but she remembered it was raining and Arthur had given her a chocolate coin from the conference room. Security confirmed that detail three weeks earlier.
Rebecca had carried the second brace inside the estate recently.
Why?
Mercer checked Dominic’s equipment-service history.
Three weeks ago, his brace was taken away for a four-hour “liner replacement.” Dominic wore a temporary soft support instead.
No liner replacement invoice existed.
The two braces may have been swapped.
That meant the modified backup could already have been on Dominic’s leg during several recent pain episodes, then exchanged again.
Someone was testing how reliably they could control his performance.
The chapter’s late payoff came from a hidden clue in the manufacturer data. Each custom override kit carried a unique micro-etched batch number. The pin Ellie recovered belonged not to Brace One, the unit officially delivered to Dominic.
It belonged to Brace Two.
Dominic had been wearing the supposedly hidden backup when Ellie noticed the reversed tab.
Lucas’s people had already completed the swap.
Then Mercer checked the electronic evaluation schedule.
Dominic’s independent succession medical test had been moved.
Not seventeen days away.
Lucas’s attorneys requested an expedited review.
It was now scheduled for three days from Monday.
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They were no longer preparing to sabotage Dominic later.
They believed the final brace was already in place.
