Chapter 7 - The Puncture Mark
Cassandra denied using a needle.
She claimed she poured the medicine into Toby’s juice.
Naomi showed Detective Price the puncture mark.
“This was an injection.”
“Could it have happened earlier?”
“Within the last several hours.”
Elijah remembered Cassandra taking Toby upstairs before dinner.
She said he needed help changing clothes.
Toby had cried briefly.
When Elijah asked what happened, Cassandra said the boy scraped his shoulder on a drawer.
Hospital staff swabbed the puncture site.
They found residue matching SN-14.
Cassandra’s story collapsed.
Her attorney requested that questioning stop.
Detective Price placed her under arrest for child endangerment and attempted murder.
As officers approached, Cassandra panicked.
“I did not design this.”
“Who did?” Price asked.
“Leonard.”
“Did he inject Toby?”
Cassandra looked toward Elijah.
“No.”
Elijah’s face changed.
Naomi understood before Cassandra spoke.
“You did it,” he whispered.
Cassandra’s voice shook.
“He said Toby would be unconscious for five minutes. Then we would use the rescue dose.”
“You injected my son?”
“You were going to lose the company!”
Elijah lunged toward her.
Security restrained him.
“You almost killed him!”
Cassandra screamed back.
“You chose that company over everyone long before I did!”
The words silenced him.
She was guilty.
But the accusation was still true.
Detective Price asked where Leonard was.
Cassandra said he planned to meet them at the hospital and control the narrative.
He never arrived.
His phone was off.
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His house was empty.
And twenty minutes earlier, someone using his badge entered Sherman Biotech’s pediatric research storage room.
