Chapter 1 - The Ten-Thousand-Dollar Appointment
Clare Bennett had exactly eighty-seven dollars in her checking account when the call came.
She knew because she had checked the balance three times that morning, as if staring long enough might somehow turn eighty-seven into eight hundred.
It didn’t.
Across the kitchen table, her eight-year-old son, Owen, sat wrapped in a faded blue blanket while he pushed cereal around his bowl.
“You’re doing the worried face again,” he said.
Clare forced a smile.
“I don’t have a worried face.”
“You do.”
“What does it look like?”
Owen narrowed his eyes dramatically and squeezed his lips together.
Clare laughed despite herself.
For three seconds, the overdue rent notice beside the refrigerator disappeared. So did the pharmacy message reminding her that Owen’s medication refill would cost more than she currently had.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She nearly ignored it.
“Clare Bennett?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Adrian Cole. I represent a private client interested in hiring you for a physical assessment.”
“I’m not taking private appointments right now.”
“This one pays ten thousand dollars.”
Silence.
Clare looked at Owen.
“I’m sorry. How much?”
“Ten thousand. One appointment.”
Every instinct told her something was wrong.
Legitimate physical therapy did not pay ten thousand dollars for one evaluation.
“Who’s the patient?”
Another pause.
“Sebastian Lombardi.”
Clare almost hung up.
Even people who stayed far away from Chicago’s criminal world knew the name.
Sebastian Lombardi had once been photographed walking beside senators, celebrities, union leaders, and men who later disappeared from public life entirely. Newspapers called him a businessman. Prosecutors used other words.
Twenty years earlier, a highway accident had left him unable to walk.
He had ruled his empire from a wheelchair ever since.
“No,” Clare said.
“Ms. Bennett—”
“No.”
“We were told you specialize in neurological rehabilitation.”
“I specialize in helping patients. I don’t specialize in getting myself killed.”
The man on the phone sounded almost amused.
“You’ll be home before midnight.”
Clare looked again at the pharmacy message.
Then at Owen.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
The Lombardi mansion stood above Lake Michigan behind iron gates and rows of bare autumn trees.
Clare arrived at 8:42 p.m.
Three security checks later, she was escorted through a marble foyer large enough to fit her apartment inside it twice.
No one smiled.
The private medical suite was on the mansion’s west side.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Chicago’s glittering skyline. Medical equipment stood beside furniture that probably cost more than Clare made in a year.
And near the windows sat Sebastian Lombardi.
He was older than the photographs she remembered, but more intimidating in person.
Dark hair.
Sharp features.
Black shirt beneath a perfectly tailored suit.
A silver watch.
One hand resting lightly on the arm of his wheelchair.
He looked Clare over.
“This is the miracle worker?”
“I never said I was a miracle worker.”
One corner of his mouth lifted.
“Good.”
A broad-shouldered man standing behind him said, “Mr. Lombardi has been evaluated by twenty-seven specialists.”
Clare set down her bag.
“Then why am I here?”
Sebastian answered.
“Because my sister heard about a patient you helped after three surgeons said his recovery had plateaued.”
“That patient wasn’t paralyzed.”
“I know.”
“Your injury happened twenty years ago.”
“I know that too.”
Clare hesitated.
“What exactly are you expecting?”
Sebastian’s gaze hardened.
“Nothing.”
That answer surprised her.
He rolled closer.
“I expect you to look at what everyone else looked at. Then you take your money and go home.”
“Why pay ten thousand dollars for that?”
“Because apparently my sister thinks hope is worth ten thousand dollars.”
Clare nodded toward the examination table.
“Can you transfer?”
“I can.”
He did it without assistance, using his powerful arms.
Clare began with standard neurological tests.
Sensation.
Reflexes.
Muscle tone.
Response to pressure.
Nothing extraordinary.
She understood why twenty-seven doctors had reached the same conclusion.
Then she asked him to lean forward.
“What are you looking for?”
“Your surgical scar.”
Sebastian’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“My surgery was twenty years ago.”
“Scars don’t expire.”
He lifted the back of his shirt.
The surgical line crossed his lower back.
Clare ran two fingers carefully along the old tissue.
Sebastian stared out at the skyline.
“You’re wasting your time.”
“Probably.”
She pressed slightly left of the scar.
His right leg moved.
Not much.
Barely an inch.
But it moved.
Clare froze.
Sebastian did too.
Behind them, someone inhaled sharply.
Clare looked at the leg.
Then at Sebastian.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Do it again.”
She pressed the same place.
His foot jerked.
This time everyone saw it.
The room became so quiet that Clare could hear the rain tapping the windows.
Sebastian’s face lost every trace of amusement.
Clare touched the scar again, slower now.
And that was when she felt it.
Something hard beneath the tissue.
Something that did not match the medical history she had been given.
Her fingers stopped.
Sebastian watched her.
“What?”
Clare looked up.
Her pulse began to race.
“Sebastian…”
The broad-shouldered lieutenant behind him had gone completely pale.
Clare swallowed.
“They lied to you.”
May you like
And from the look on the lieutenant’s face, someone in that room already knew exactly what she meant.
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