I picked up the dark leather tube, rolled the presidential commission back into its protective sleeve, and screwed the brass cap firmly into place.

I locked the drawer, slipped the brass key into my coin purse, and drove straight back to St.

Jude Regional Medical Center before the morning shift change.

Dr.

Aris stood beside Toby’s raised hospital bed with an X-ray clipped to a lit viewing board.

Toby was fast asleep, his right arm resting in a thick blue foam cradle.

“The break is right along the middle of the bone,” Dr.

Aris said, tracing a silver pen across the stark white fracture on the film.