Chapter 4 - The Detective at Christmas
Detective Cole locked the medical room behind him.
Daniel kept one hand near the injector.
“If that is not the antidote, what is?”
Cole pointed toward a blue case beneath the lowest shelf.
“Neutralizing gel. Clear bottle.”
I opened the case.
Inside was a sealed tube and emergency instructions.
We applied the gel across Emma’s face.
She cried from the cold sting, but the swelling stopped spreading.
Cole checked her breathing.
“She still needs a hospital.”
“Who are those men?” I asked.
“Private security contractors.”
“Working for Richard?”
Cole looked toward Daniel.
“Working for someone inside Whitmore Holdings.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“My father runs Whitmore Holdings.”
“Not alone.”
Cole sank against the wall.
Blood spread through his uniform.
He had come with a legitimate warrant after receiving evidence that Daniel planned to poison me.
The fake officers intercepted his team at the gate.
“They killed your partner?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What evidence brought you here?”
“An anonymous package.”
He removed a folded photocopy from inside his vest.
A purchase receipt for CX-17.
The buyer was listed as Daniel Whitmore.
The delivery address was our home.
Daniel shook his head.
“I never ordered it.”
“The authorization came from your biometric signature.”
“Those systems are controlled by corporate security.”
Cole nodded.
“Your father’s department.”
Daniel looked at me.
The wound in his expression was deeper than anger.
He had spent years defending Richard.
Not because he trusted him.
Because admitting what his father was would destroy the last illusion of family he had left.
I remembered Richard’s accusation.
“You stole something from his study.”
Daniel hesitated.
“A ledger.”
“What was inside?”
“Payments to doctors, police officials, judges, private clinics.”
“For what?”
“Experiments.”
Cole looked up sharply.
“What kind?”
Daniel opened his coat and removed a small black notebook.
He had carried it since arriving for Christmas breakfast.
“Richard funded a medical program called Winter Glass.”
Cole stared at the cover.
“I’ve heard that name.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A classified behavioral-control trial from the nineties. Officially terminated after patient deaths.”
Daniel opened the ledger.
Several pages listed coded subjects.
Payments.
Dosages.
Silence agreements.
One name appeared repeatedly.
CLAIRE HART.
My maiden name.
I stared at it.
“That’s me.”
The entries began when I was twelve.
Long before I met Daniel.
Richard had known me as a child.
I turned the page.
December 24, twenty-three years earlier.
Subject exposed. Memory suppression successful.
Mother uncooperative. Removal authorized.
My hands began shaking.
“My mother died on Christmas Eve.”
Daniel looked at me.
“You said it was a car accident.”
“That is what I was told.”
Cole took the ledger.
“Richard may have been involved.”
A metallic sound came from the corridor.
Someone unlocking the outer gate.
Cole raised his weapon.
Daniel switched off the lights.
Emma whispered, “Mom?”
I covered her with my body.
The door opened slowly.
Richard stepped inside alone.
He held my phone.
I checked my hand.
The device I had been gripping was Daniel’s.
Richard had switched them during the blackout.
He lifted my phone.
“The recording is gone.”
May you like
Then he looked at the ledger.
“But now you have something much worse.”
