Page 64 of State of Ruin

“What in the hell is goin’ on out here?” he asks, shooing the dog inside before darting forward to grab the handles of the wheelchair, thank fuck. “Darlin’, is everything okay?”

Then he clocks me, and his hands freeze. “Oh, shit,” he says.

I clear my throat. “Sir, I⁠—”

But his daughter cuts me off. “I was just telling him he needs to leave and stay away.”

He looks me up and down somberly. I have not seen such abject disappointment in another man’s face since I had to tell my Dad I didn’t make valedictorian—only this time, it’s deserved. “You heard my daughter,” he says with a little nod. “I think you’d better leave, son. There’s nobody for you to see here.”

I nod. “I understand, sir.” I hold up the small gift bag, feeling foolish. “If it’s all right with you, this is for Elyse. It’s just something small.” Carefully, I inch forward so I can set it on the highest step, to the side of the ramp.

He sighs, stooping to pick it up, and turns the wheelchair away from me as its occupant shoots me one last death stare. “Come on, sweetheart. It’s cold out.”

CHAPTER 34

Sinclair

Mickey Brown is the Swiss Army knife of fixers, with a razor-sharp blade for every occasion. And by blade, I mean a member of his team: experts who are so highly skilled and so morally ambivalent that they can handle anything.

I should know. My family keeps him in business, after all.

I call him on the way home from that utter disaster. Never have I felt so helpless, every last tool in my toolbox lying uselessly at my feet. My mandate to him is simple: get me everything possible on Elyse Ward’s family situation and, crucially, her financial one, too.

I have a couple theories, and I’d like to see them put to the test.

At the very least, enlisting Mickey’s help is a distraction from this powerlessness I’m feeling. He’s my Hail Mary, my last distress flare. He’s one final bastion of competence and levelheadedness in a world where I’m rapidly losing my mind. Having all sense of control taken from you, having people—women—all around you deciding to stonewall you, will do that to a guy.

Now I just need Mickey to come good.

He does come good, less than forty-eight hours later. I sit at my desk and devour his dossier with indecent haste.

First, I force myself to do the most painful thing and acquaint myself with the details of Sylvie Ward’s accident. Mickey has pulled both the report from Bayonne PD and the letter from one of the specialists at Jersey City Medical Center to her primary care practitioner. The police report is a matter of public record, but I don’t want to think about what ethical lines Mickey’s “blades” crossed to steal someone’s private medical records.

I pull up the PDF of the police report, which is sobering in its clinical flatness. I scan it and see at a glance the ways in which the law has failed Sylvie, who was about eight blocks away from her home on the evening of June 7 when she was hit by a dark-colored sedan.

Vehicle 2 struck the rear wheel of the bicycle, ejecting the rider, who landed on the roadway approximately 15–20 feet from the point of impact, impacting the rider on her right side. Her helmet was dislodged on impact.

My sight begins to darken at the periphery, and I close my eyes for a long moment, blowing out a shuddery breath. My hands are sweating, and I wipe them on my pants. For a second, I’m back there on a pitch-black road in the bowels of Long Island.

But this is important. I open my eyes and force myself to read on, bracing for more verbal brutality. The report surmises that the driver was probably doing over the speed limit, given how far Sylvie was thrown, and then continues with absolutely no leads of value:

Vehicle 2 driver: UNKNOWN. Fled scene. No plate obtained. Witness reported seeing a dark-colored sedan continuing north on Avenue A. No skid marks were observed at the scene, suggesting the driver did not brake prior to or following impact.

Motherfucker.

The police stopped looking for the driver by the end of August. Case suspended pending new information, which sounds like laziness to me. With a shaking hand, I close out of the PDF and click on the medical letter instead. I scan the wording.

…comminuted fracture of the acetabulum and pelvic ring... open reduction internal fixation... hardware... foley, transfusions, DVT prophylaxis... non-weight-bearing for ten to twelve weeks... patient counseled regarding likelihood of post-traumatic arthritis and arthroplasty in her future.

I don’t understand most of the medical jargon, but it seems fair to conclude that, in plain English, the PCP letter is saying that Sylvie was fucked. Some frustrated googling uncovers the following: that when she was thrown across the street like a rag doll, she landed on her right hip, driving the ball into the cup and shattering the latter while also cracking her pelvic ring.

Jesus Christ.

No wonder the poor woman is still using a wheelchair six months later, although if my memory serves, Elyse mentioned that Sylvie is spending more and more time on crutches around the house. Arguably the most ominous phrases in the letter are those in the future tense: the specialist seems to be suggesting that Sylvie may need a hip replacement later if she develops arthritis in the reconstructed socket.

And here she is, a single, working mom whose company failed to provide her with adequate cover against this kind of accident—if you can call a sedan mowing into a cyclist accidental.

Even if the hitting part was an accident, the running part certainly wasn’t, and that is a truth far too uncomfortable for me to entertain in this moment. So it’s a relief to move on to the financial evidence Mickey has unearthed.