Chapter 1 - The Thing Under the Cast
The cast cutter had barely touched Eli’s filthy fiberglass cast when Martha slapped the instrument tray sideways.
Metal forceps and bandage scissors scattered across the ER floor.
“You’re not cutting that off.”
Dr. Sarah Jenkins stopped.
Eight-year-old Eli sat on the exam bed with his injured arm pressed against his stomach.
His fingertips were blue.
His forehead glistened with fever.
Sarah looked from the boy to his mother.
“This cast needs to come off.”
“He exaggerates everything.”
Martha said it with a tired little smile, as if Sarah had simply met an inconvenient child.
Eli lowered his eyes.
That reaction bothered Sarah.
Children usually protested when a parent falsely accused them.
Eli looked practiced at disappearing.
Sarah picked up another cutter.
“Move away from my patient.”
Martha’s polished expression tightened.
She stepped back.
Sarah positioned herself between mother and son and carefully split the blackened edge of the cast.
A deep-burgundy strip of fabric appeared beneath the padding.
It didn’t belong there.
Sarah stopped.
“What is that?”
Eli’s eyes immediately went to Martha.
“She said nobody could see it.”
Sarah looked up.
Martha had gone pale.
“Eli,” Sarah said gently, “who put that under there?”
Martha moved forward.
“Don’t interrogate my child.”
Sarah opened the cast another inch.
The burgundy fabric was wrapped tightly around Eli’s forearm beneath the legitimate padding.
Too tightly.
His muscles twitched underneath it.
The loose end lifted with each small spasm.
Sarah understood why his fingers were blue.
Someone had intentionally created compression inside the cast.
Martha lunged forward.
“Don’t open it any farther.”
Sarah stepped between her and Eli again.
“Stay back.”
Eli began crying without making a sound.
Sarah lowered her voice.
“Did somebody tie this around your arm?”
He nodded.
Martha snapped, “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Sarah looked directly at her.
“Who tied it?”
Eli swallowed.
“My mom.”
Martha’s face hardened.
Then Eli added something that changed the entire room.
“She only makes it tight before appointments.”
Sarah stopped breathing for one second.
Not once.
Not accidentally.
Before appointments.
There was a pattern.
Sarah reached for the wall phone and asked the charge nurse to send another nurse into the room.
Martha heard her.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking care of Eli.”
“I’m his mother.”
Sarah met her eyes.
“Right now, that doesn’t give you control over this room.”
For the first time since she had arrived, Martha looked frightened.
May you like
Not about her son’s arm.
About what Sarah might find when the rest of the cast came off.
