Chapter 3 - MY INJURIES
Dr. Nina Patel reviewed everything with me the next morning.
Not because she suspected crime.
Because I finally asked.
“Could these injuries come from falling down stairs?”
“Yes.”
My heart dropped.
Then:
“Could they come from being pushed?”
“Yes.”
Not helpful.
“Can you tell which?”
“Not reliably from fractures alone.”
She sat beside the bed.
“You appear to have landed feet-first or nearly so for part of the fall. That accounts for the bilateral lower-extremity injuries. You also struck your right side.”
“My ribs.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Bruising on both upper arms.”
I looked at them.
Dark fingerprints were beginning to resolve into ugly purple marks.
“They could come from someone grabbing you.”
“Could they come from paramedics?”
“Possible, depending handling, but the distribution was documented before most transfers.”
That mattered.
Not proof.
Evidence.
Then she pointed to a shallow abrasion across my shoulder.
“Something contacted you here.”
“Wall?”
“Possibly.”
“Caleb says I slipped.”
“Medicine cannot tell you whether gravity began with a slip or a shove.”
I hated the sentence.
It was honest.
“What about dizziness?”
“Your admission blood work did not show alcohol intoxication.”
“I don’t drink much.”
“There were sedating medications in your system.”
I stared.
“What?”
“A benzodiazepine.”
“I’m not prescribed one.”
“Do you remember taking anything?”
I thought.
Caleb handing me two tablets before we drove to the construction site.
“For my back.”
“What were they?”
“He said muscle relaxer.”
“Do you know the name?”
“No.”
Nina’s expression sharpened.
“Tell Detective Quinn that.”
I felt cold.
Caleb had given me medication.
Could it have been innocent?
Yes.
His prescription.
Something he thought would help.
Still wrong.
Still relevant.
I told Mara.
She asked:
“Did he say the pills were his?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
Why?
Because I trusted my husband enough to swallow two white tablets without reading a bottle.
That fact humiliated me.
May you like
Mara did not react.
She only wrote.
