If you don't drop the federal grand jury indictment against War Supplies Corporation by midnight, your niece won't leave this precinct alive, the police officer whispered, pressing his service re...
The call came from Agent Brody, his voice tight with urgency. “Arthur, you need to get back to the precinct holding facility. Now. It’s Clara.”
My blood ran cold. I broke every speed limit getting back to the Baltimore Fifth Precinct, my mind a storm of dread.
When I burst into the dingy room where Clara was being held, the scene hit me like a physical blow. She was slumped against the wall, her breathing ragged, a faint but alarming wheezing sound filling the small, stale room. Her face was flushed, puffy, and her eyes were swollen nearly shut. She scratched at her neck, leaving angry red welts.
Henry was there, beside her, his face pale with terror. He gripped her hand, whispering her name.
Agent Brody knelt beside Clara, his expression grim. Officer Callahan stood in the corner, his back to us, pretending to examine some papers.
“She’s having a severe reaction, Arthur,” Brody said, his voice low. “Anaphylactic shock. We’ve called for an ambulance, but it’s going to be a few minutes.”
I knelt beside Clara, my heart hammering against my ribs. Her small chest heaved with each struggling breath. “What happened? Did she touch something?”
“We don’t know,” Henry choked out, tears streaming down his face. “She just started getting worse. She was rubbing her eyes, then her throat felt tight.”
Brody, ever observant, had been systematically examining the cell. He pointed to a small, worn leather satchel Clara had been carrying – her school satchel.
“I found this, Arthur,” he said, holding up the satchel, its flap open. “Look inside.”
My gaze fell to the interior. It looked normal at first, then I saw it: a fine, brownish dust coating the bottom, clinging to the stitching. It was almost imperceptible, a faint, sweet smell rising from it.
“Cocoa powder,” Brody confirmed, his voice filled with disgust. “Raw, high-grade cocoa powder. Dusted inside her satchel.”
My head snapped up, my eyes locking onto Callahan, who still stood with his back to us. He wasn’t even attempting to hide the sheer malice of his act.
“You animal,” I snarled, rising slowly to my feet. “You did this, didn’t you? You knew about her allergy.”
Callahan slowly turned, a chillingly bland expression on his face. “Just following Captain Gallagher’s orders, Mr. Pendelton. He said to make sure the ‘evidence’ was convincing.”
He glanced at Clara, then back at me, a flicker of something triumphant in his eyes. “Sometimes, you gotta make a point, right? Can’t have federal prosecutors thinking they’re above the law.”
The venom in his words, the callous disregard for a child’s life, was sickening. They hadn’t just framed her; they had tortured her, using her own fatal vulnerability against her.
Clara gasped, a thin, strangled sound, her eyes rolling back. Henry cried out her name, his voice raw with terror.
The sound of the ambulance siren, faint at first, then growing louder, was the only thing that kept me from lunging across the room and strangling Callahan with my bare hands.
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