Chapter 3 - The Therapy Ethan Never Received
Ethan’s official rehabilitation file looked convincing.
That was what frightened Maya.
Weekly strength reports.
Medication notes.
Mobility assessments.
Therapy recommendations.
All showing slow recovery.
All warning against unsupported standing.
Yet when Ethan’s original physical therapist, Dr. Natalie Ross, was contacted, she said something very different.
“I told Claire he was improving.”
“When?”
“March.”
Six months earlier.
Natalie had seen increased quadriceps strength, improved foot pressure and better trunk control.
She recommended standing trials.
Two days later, Claire told her Ethan’s neurologist had prohibited weight-bearing.
Natalie received a signed report.
Doctor:
Samuel Reed.
Ethan had never met Samuel Reed.
The state medical board had.
He was a real physician—but retired four years earlier and living in Florida.
He had never treated Ethan.
Someone had used his name.
Natalie tried to contact Ethan directly.
Her emails went unanswered.
Her calls went to voicemail.
Then Claire terminated her contract, saying Mercer insurance no longer covered her.
That was false.
Ethan checked his email account.
Natalie’s messages were there.
Automatically routed into a hidden folder by a rule created from Ethan’s home computer.
Claire had access to that computer while helping him pay bills after the crash.
Ethan sat in the hospital hallway and stared at the screen.
She had not simply given him unnecessary medicine.
She had removed the person most likely to make him walk.
Then another name appeared in the records.
Northbridge Recovery Group.
The wheelchair had come from one of their warehouses.
Northbridge was legitimate.
But the chair assigned to Ethan was not.
Its serial number belonged to old equipment retired from a Mercer Technologies rehabilitation pilot three years earlier.
Project E-40.
Ethan remembered it immediately.
Forty patients recovering from orthopedic or neurological injuries had used sensor-equipped mobility equipment while Mercer engineers studied weight-bearing patterns.
The project had been shut down after one participant complained that therapists were delaying his progression to preserve cleaner data.
Ethan had approved the shutdown personally.
The participant was Marcus Hale.
Number 17.
Investigators checked Ethan’s wheelchair.
Same serial.
Same frame.
It had been Marcus Hale’s chair.
Claire had worked on Project E-40.
So had Jonathan Pike.
Suddenly the board deadline, the chair and the injections began to connect.
Then Lily said something from her hospital bed.
“Daddy?”
Ethan sat beside her.
“What, sweetheart?”
“The orange medicine has a number.”
“What number?”
“Forty.”
Ethan frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Claire says it on the phone.”
“What does she say?”
Lily tried to remember.
“E-forty. Keep Daddy on E-forty.”
Ethan looked toward Maya.
May you like
Project E-40 had supposedly ended three years earlier.
But someone had just used the same project name inside Ethan’s home.
