Chapter 10 - A Patient Who Refused to Stay Helpless
They left through the service elevator.
Nicholas hated every second of it.
"I own half the building next door," he muttered as Hannah pushed his chair through a laundry corridor.
"Congratulations. Keep your head down."
"You enjoy this too much."
"I enjoy you alive."
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Nicholas looked back.
Hannah focused on the exit sign.
In the car, Walter called the estate and ordered only two longtime guards to remain near Nicholas. Everyone else was sent home on paid leave.
"If someone has been reporting our movements," Walter said, "we reduce the number of people who can do it."
"Including you?" Nicholas asked.
Walter accepted the blow.
"Including me."
At the mansion, Claire waited in the library.
"Where were you?"
Nicholas rolled past her.
"Out."
"You can't disappear without telling me."
He stopped.
"Watch me."
Claire looked at Hannah.
"You took a medically fragile man out without approval."
"He is an adult," Hannah said. "He doesn't need your permission."
"We'll see about that."
That night Nicholas asked Hannah to lock the door while he attempted a transfer from wheelchair to bed without assistance.
"This is a bad idea," she said.
"Probably."
"Then why are we doing it?"
"Because Claire keeps looking at me like the chair made me stupid."
"Standing won't fix stupid."
He gave her a dark look.
"Encouraging."
Hannah positioned herself close enough to catch him without taking over.
Nicholas braced both hands, shifted forward, and tried to bear weight.
His right leg shook violently.
His left did almost nothing.
He dropped back into the chair, breathing hard.
"Again," he said.
"No."
"Hannah."
"Your pride is not a medical plan."
He glared.
She glared back.
Then his expression cracked.
"I hate needing people."
Hannah's voice softened.
"Needing help is not the same as surrendering control."
He looked down at his hands.
"Claire knows exactly how much I hate it."
"Then stop letting her use it against you."
At 3:00 a.m., an alarm sounded from the downstairs study.
Hannah ran with Walter toward the room.
A desk drawer had been forced open.
Nicholas's father's fountain pen was gone.
So was the folder containing his original power-of-attorney documents.
On the desk lay a printed notice from county court.
Emergency petition for temporary guardianship.
May you like
Filed by Claire Whitmore.
The hearing was in forty-eight hours.
