Chapter 6 - THE POISONED EVIDENCE
The police van smelled of wet wool, metal, and old fear.
My wrists were cuffed to a steel ring beneath the bench.
Lorenzo sat across from me with his hands secured behind his back.
Two armed officers occupied the front compartment.
A wire screen separated us from them, but I knew they were listening.
The vial hidden in my pocket pressed against my thigh.
Sofia Rossi's name remained concealed beneath the false label carrying mine.
Mercer had put it there deliberately.
The question was whether it was a warning, a threat, or bait.
Lorenzo watched my face.
"What did he give you?" he asked.
One of the officers glanced at the rearview mirror.
I shook my head.
"Nothing."
Lorenzo's eyes narrowed.
He knew I was lying.
I also knew better than to reveal evidence inside a vehicle Mercer had arranged.
The van turned sharply through the city.
Rain streaked across the small reinforced windows.
Behind us, the glow from the burning Rossi estate faded into the dark sky.
Somewhere on another road, Enzo was carrying Leo toward the only doctor Lorenzo trusted.
Somewhere else, Lily waited with a woman who was supposed to be dead.
The van stopped at a traffic light.
A motorcycle pulled beside us.
The rider wore a black helmet and raised one gloved hand.
A serpent had been painted across the knuckles.
"Down," Lorenzo said.
He threw himself sideways before the first bullet hit.
The reinforced window cracked but held.
A second rider appeared on the opposite side.
Gunfire hammered the van.
The officers shouted and accelerated through the red light.
A car horn screamed.
Metal crashed against metal.
I slid across the bench and struck the floor.
Lorenzo braced one foot against the wall and used his shoulder to keep me from slamming into the rear door.
"They are not trying to free me," he said.
"They are trying to destroy the evidence before we reach the station."
The van swerved around a bus.
One motorcycle disappeared beneath another vehicle with a burst of sparks.
The second continued following us for three blocks before police cruisers boxed it out.
When we finally entered the underground garage beneath police headquarters, the officers dragged us out separately.
Lorenzo looked back once.
"Say nothing until my attorney arrives."
"Your attorney may work for Mercer."
"Then say nothing after he arrives either."
They took me to an interrogation room with gray walls and a bolted metal table.
A camera blinked red in the corner.
My wet uniform clung to my skin.
Milk had soaked through the fabric again, leaving dark stains I could not hide.
A female detective entered carrying a paper cup of water.
Her nameplate read DETECTIVE HARPER.
She had tired blue eyes and a wedding ring hanging from a chain around her neck.
"Ms. Bennett, I am going to remove the cuffs."
"Keep your hands on the table."
I obeyed.
She unlocked the metal and sat across from me.
"Do you understand why you are here?"
"Because Dr. Mercer arranged it."
"You entered a restricted nursery and made physical contact with an infant without permission."
"I fed a starving baby."
"With your body."
"Yes."
The detective's expression remained professional, but something softened behind her eyes.
"Did you know your breast milk contained diazepam and phenobarbital?"
"It did not."
"A sample from your room tested positive."
"There was no sample in my room."
She opened a file and slid a photograph toward me.
It showed a small storage bag inside a staff refrigerator.
My name had been written across it in blue marker.
"Do you recognize this?"
"No."
"The handwriting?"
"No."
"The bag was found beneath your personal food."
"Then someone put it there."
Harper studied me.
"Dr. Mercer believes your recent loss may have caused you to form a delusional attachment to Leo."
"Dr. Mercer stole my daughter."
The detective stopped writing.
"Your daughter was stillborn."
"That is what Saint Agnes told me."
"We saw a video of her alive."
"Who is we?"
"Lorenzo, Matteo, Mason, Celeste, and me."
"Where is the video?"
"Projected inside the Rossi chapel by the people who attacked us."
Harper leaned back.
"That will be difficult to verify."
"Check the hospital nursery footage from three weeks ago."
"You will see Bianca Rossi carry Lily out."
"Bianca Rossi is currently in surgery with a gunshot wound."
"She also held a doll over a balcony and threatened to drop it."
The detective closed the file.
"Do you hear how this sounds?"
"I hear how carefully it was designed to sound."
I reached into my pocket slowly.
Harper's hand moved toward her weapon.
"It is a vial."
"Dr. Mercer put it there."
I placed the glass container on the table.
The label with my name faced upward.
"Peel it back."
She used a gloved fingernail to lift the corner.
Sofia Rossi's name appeared beneath mine.
Harper's eyes sharpened.
"Why would Mercer give you this?"
"He wanted me to know he controls the evidence."
"Or he wanted you caught carrying a contaminated sample."
That possibility had not occurred to me.
The detective sealed the vial inside an evidence bag.
"No one from Saint Agnes touches this."
"Send it to a state lab in another county."
"I decide where it goes."
"Then decide whether you want the truth or a result Mercer already wrote."
Harper stood.
"Do not mistake my patience for belief."
She left the room.
I sat alone beneath the camera for nearly an hour.
The adrenaline faded, leaving my body cold and exhausted.
My chest ached from Leo's interrupted feeding.
My lower back throbbed from crawling through the laundry conduit.
When I closed my eyes, I saw Lily's fist opening beneath the blue blanket.
I pressed my palms against the table and promised her silently that I would not stop.
The door opened again.
Dr. Mercer entered.
He carried no medical bag this time.
His overcoat was gone, and his sleeves were rolled neatly to his elbows.
"You look tired," he said.
"You look disappointed."
"Leo should have died before the police arrived."
He smiled faintly.
"Grief creates such vivid interpretations."
"There is a camera in the corner."
"It has been disconnected for maintenance."
The red light still blinked, but I understood that did not mean it was recording.
Mercer sat across from me.
"Lorenzo's son has survived longer than expected."
"Why do you want him dead?"
"I want no child dead."
"You only make them disappear."
His smile vanished.
"Mason told you too much."
"He told me you paid him."
"Mason would sell his own shadow if someone offered enough money."
"He sold my daughter."
"No."
Mercer folded his hands.
"He sold access to you."
"There is a difference."
"Not to me."
"Where is Lily?"
"Safe for the moment."
"With Sofia?"
A flicker moved through his eyes.
It was the first time I had surprised him.
"Sofia Rossi died in a car accident."
"Then why was her name on the vial?"
"Because mothers produce milk."
"Sofia stored hundreds of ounces before the crash."
"Leo received it after he left intensive care."
"You poisoned it."
"An ugly accusation."
"A simple one."
Mercer leaned forward.
"You need to understand what is happening around you."
"Lorenzo Rossi is not a grieving father who needs rescue."
"He is a violent criminal whose organization has killed more people than you could name."
"He will use your need to find Lily until you are no longer useful."
"Then he will bury you beside her."
"You sound afraid of him."
"I sound realistic."
"You tried to frame him for my attack."
"Because the country needs a reason to remove him."
"Poisoning his baby was your reason?"
"History rarely changes because good men ask politely."
He spoke like someone explaining a difficult medical procedure.
No anger.
No shame.
Only certainty.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"A confession."
"You entered the nursery because you believed Leo was Lily."
"You fed him milk containing sedatives."
"When Celeste tried to stop you, Lorenzo's men abducted her."
"In exchange, Lily will be returned to you through a private adoption arrangement."
My hands curled into fists.
"She is already mine."
"Biology is not the same as possession."
"You should know."
Mercer's eyes cooled.
He reached into his shirt pocket and placed a hospital bracelet on the table.
It matched the one I had found on Paulie.
LILLIAN BENNETT.
This bracelet had dried blood along the edge.
"Sign the confession before midnight," he said.
"Otherwise the next thing you receive will be smaller."
He stood.
Before he reached the door, an alarm began ringing in the corridor.
Officers shouted.
A gurney rolled past the narrow window.
I caught a glimpse of Mason strapped to it, his face covered by an oxygen mask.
A man in paramedic clothing walked beside him.
The man's hand rested near Mason's IV line.
A black serpent ring gleamed beneath his glove.
I slammed both palms against the door.
"That paramedic is going to kill him."
No one responded.
Mercer looked through the window and smiled.
I grabbed the metal chair and drove it into the glass.
The reinforced pane cracked.
I hit it again.
An officer outside turned toward the noise.
"Check the paramedic's hand," I screamed.
The officer looked down the corridor.
The disguised man had already pushed a syringe into Mason's IV port.
Police rushed him.
He drew a gun.
Three shots exploded.
The paramedic fell beside the gurney.
Mason began convulsing.
Detective Harper sprinted into the room, shoved Mercer against the wall, and handcuffed him before he could protest.
"The camera was not disconnected," she said.
"I wanted to hear what you would say when you thought it was."
For the first time, Mercer's calm disappeared.
Harper ordered officers to take him away.
As he passed me, he whispered, "You just shortened your daughter's life."
The corridor filled with doctors trying to save Mason.
A woman in dark blue scrubs knelt beside the gurney and injected medication into his other arm.
Her surgical mask covered most of her face.
She looked up at me.
Above her left eyebrow was a pale scar.
My breath stopped.
The woman stood and entered the interrogation room before anyone could block her.
She closed the door behind her.
Then she removed her mask.
Sofia Rossi was alive.
May you like
"Do not tell Lorenzo you saw me," she said.
"Not until you know why Matteo helped kill me."
