The Girl Without Shoes

"Sir, I can make you walk."

Charles Whitmore looked down at the barefoot girl blocking his wheelchair.

She had planted herself between him and three men who had been waiting all evening for permission to approach. One of her curls was caught in the satin bow above her ear. She looked no older than four.

"Can you?" he asked.

"Yes. But you have to listen."

Behind her, someone laughed into a champagne flute.

Charles had been called many things in that ballroom. Generous, by people who wanted his money. Ruthless, by people who had lost theirs. Nobody had told him to listen quite that firmly since his sister disappeared.

"Where are your shoes?"

The girl lifted a foot to inspect it. "They were hurting me."

"Get that filthy child away from him," a woman said.

Vivian Ashcroft stood beside the silent auction display, diamonds bright against her throat. Her voice carried far enough for the nearest conversations to stop.

The girl lowered her foot.

Charles noticed the change immediately. Her hands dropped from her hips, and she pinched a fold of her faded cream dress.

Two guards started toward her.

"Stay where you are," Charles said.

They stopped. So did the waiter carrying a tray behind them.

He turned his chair slightly toward Vivian.

"The child can stay. You can leave."

Her smile faltered. "Charles, I only meant—"

"You made yourself clear."

Daniel Mercer appeared beside the auction table. Charles's security chief said nothing; he merely indicated the doors. Vivian's husband put down his glass and went to collect her coat.

The girl watched them go.

"Is she in trouble?"

"She's going home."

"She should say sorry first."

Charles considered summoning Vivian back. Then he saw the small crease between the girl's eyebrows and realized she was waiting for an actual answer.

"She should," he agreed.

The child nodded, satisfied that they understood each other.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Lyla Everly. I'm four."

She held up four fingers, checked them, and pushed her thumb down with her other hand.

"I'm Charles."

"I know. Your picture's downstairs. You look cross in it."

Daniel made a small sound behind his shoulder.

Charles ignored him. "Who brought you here, Lyla?"

"Mrs. Bell. She's got my shoes and Mommy's letter."

Across the room, an older woman in a navy coat was speaking urgently to a hotel manager. She held a purple backpack, two tiny white shoes, and an envelope.

Daniel followed Charles's glance and went to meet her.

"Your tie's crooked," Lyla said.

Before Charles could answer, she reached up and straightened it with careful, sticky fingers.

He went still.

Men in his private offices asked before moving an ashtray. His staff approached from the front, announced themselves, and knew better than to touch his chair. This child had just adjusted his clothes as though he belonged to her.

"There," she said. "You look better now."

He ought to have found it irritating.

Instead, he noticed a red mark on the back of her heel.

"Daniel will find you a chair."

"You've already got one." She pointed at his legs. "Can we do mine first?"

"Your what?"

"My helping."

Charles rested his hands on the armrests. Four years earlier, a car wreck had damaged his spine. Since then, people had spoken to him about improvements, possibilities, promising treatments. He had paid for all of them until the word promising became unbearable.

Lately, his right thigh had sometimes tightened during transfers. His doctor wanted a new assessment. Charles had postponed it twice.

He had no intention of discussing that in a ballroom.

"Some very clever doctors have tried to help me," he told her.

"Mommy helps people too. Sometimes they get mad at her."

"I can understand that."

"She says you can be mad and still try."

Lyla looked at him expectantly. She had delivered this information without any apparent awareness of the hundreds of people pretending not to watch them.

Charles glanced toward Mrs. Bell. Daniel was bringing her closer.

"Your mother sent you to tell me that?"

"No. I thought of the helping myself."

Something in her expression made him believe her.

"If you get me walking," he said, "I'll owe you a million dollars."

She frowned. "That's too many dollars."

"Most people disagree."

"Can I have a cookie instead?"

He almost smiled. "You negotiate badly."

"I like cookies."

Mrs. Bell reached them, breathless and apologetic. "Mr. Whitmore, I'm so sorry. We were admitted to deliver her mother's letter, and she saw you before I could explain. Her shoes rubbed her heels raw. I was putting them in the bag when she slipped around the table."

"She hasn't troubled me."

"I told her we should wait."

"We did wait," Lyla protested. "For ages."

Daniel took the envelope Mrs. Bell offered, but Charles's attention remained on the girl.

She put her palms lightly against his knees.

"Mommy tells Mr. Ben to put his feet flat," she said. "Like this."

She demonstrated with her own small feet.

Charles looked down. His right shoe had turned slightly inward against the footplate. He adjusted his leg with one hand.

Then the muscle above his knee tightened.

He stopped breathing for a moment.

It happened again, stronger than the familiar flicker during transfers.

"Daniel."

His security chief was beside him immediately.

"Something wrong?"

"Lock the chair."

Daniel's eyes dropped to his legs. "Here?"

Charles nodded.

Mrs. Bell drew Lyla gently aside. Daniel engaged the brakes and stood close enough to catch him.

Charles planted his hands on the armrests. He had lifted himself countless times to move between seats. This time he placed his feet carefully and tried to put some weight through them.

His arms took most of it. His thighs shook. Daniel caught him beneath one arm.

For two unsteady seconds, he was upright.

The room vanished behind the rush of blood in his ears.

Then his knees began to fold, and Daniel helped him sit.

Charles gripped the armrests. He could hear his own breathing. Somewhere nearby, a glass struck a table too hard.

"You did it," Lyla whispered.

He looked at her. "Barely."

"But you did."

She stepped forward, pleased enough to bounce on her sore feet. Something slipped from the shallow pocket of her dress and struck the marble.

A small gold watch spun once beside his shoe.

Charles knew it before Daniel bent to retrieve it.

The oval case. The worn engraving. Two intertwined initials beneath the Whitmore crest.

His father had ordered two of them. Charles's was in his safe. He had fastened the other around his little sister's wrist on her sixteenth birthday.

A year later, she was gone.

"Give it to me," he said.

Daniel placed it in his hand.

Charles opened the case. Inside, beneath a scratch he remembered making himself, were the words he had chosen twenty-one years earlier.

For Elena. Wherever you go.

His thumb stopped over her name.

"Lyla," he said, fighting to keep his voice steady. "Where did you get this watch?"