Chapter 6 - The Autopsy Blood That Did Not Match
Silence hung heavy over the phone line.
Tobias held the phone steady.
He didn't make a sound.
“Penelope?” Garrett shouted again.
“Answer me! Did you burn the Newport house?”
Tobias ended the call with a thumb press.
He dropped the phone onto the truck dashboard.
Penelope groaned in the backseat.
Her eyes flickered open.
She stared at the truck’s stained headliner.
Then she saw Tobias sitting in the driver’s seat.
She saw him through the rearview mirror.
She tried to push herself upright, but pain shot through her torso.
“You’re supposed to be crippled,” Penelope whispered.
Terror hollowed her cheeks.
“You’ve been playing us.”
“For fifteen years,” Tobias said smoothly.
“While you and Garrett plotted, I watched.”
“I memorized every lie you told over Sunday roasts.”
“I know about the Swiss accounts.”
“I know about the private clinic in Zurich.”
“I know about the brake lines on Mom and Dad’s car.”
Penelope shrank back into the corner of the seat.
She looked at me.
“Rosalind... please,” she pleaded.
“I was manipulated.”
“Garrett told me you were going to cut me out of the trust.”
“He said you hated me because of our father’s affair.”
“He gave me the pills for you.”
“He told me they were vitamins!”
I turned in my seat and leaned over the console.
My gaze was cold.
“Save your breath, Penelope,” I said.
“I heard you in the vault.”
“You wanted my emerald necklace to match your mourning gown.”
“You laughed about the river water washing away the evidence.”
She began to weep.
It was no longer an act.
It was the raw, pathetic terror of a cornered coward.
“The baby,” she sobbed, clutching her abdomen.
“I’m bleeding, Rosalind.”
“Please don't let the baby die.”
I looked down at her lap.
A dark red stain was spreading across the fabric of her black skirt.
My breath caught in my throat.
Despite the poison, despite the treason, that child was my blood.
It was the last piece of my family that Garrett had tried to twist into a
weapon.
“Chen’s clinic,” I told Tobias.
“He has surgical equipment.”
Tobias didn't argue.
He slammed the truck into gear and tore toward the highway.
Twenty minutes later, Chen was prepping a gurney in the back room of his
warehouse.
He pulled Penelope onto the table.
He strapped a portable ultrasound monitor across her belly.
The room filled with the rhythmic sound of a heartbeat.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was fast, faint, but alive.
Chen wiped sweat from his forehead.
“The placenta is partially separated from the wall,” Chen said.
“She suffered trauma from the fall.”
“If she doesn't receive specialized clotting factors within the hour, she will
lose the pregnancy.”
“Do it,” I commanded.
Chen hesitated.
“Rosalind, this clinic doesn't carry those factors.”
“Only St. Jude’s Hospital downtown has them in stock.”
“And Marcus Vance has two patrol cars stationed at St. Jude’s right now.”
Tobias pulled his tactical knife from his boot.
“Then we take the hospital,” he said.
“No,” I stopped him.
“Marcus is looking for two dead bodies or a rogue shooter.”
“He isn't looking for a widow who refuses to stay in her grave.”
I walked over to the supply cabinet.
I pulled out a set of clean surgical scrubs.
I tied my damp hair into a tight bun.
I grabbed a pair of protective glasses.
“I’m going into St. Jude’s,” I said.
“You’re insane,” Tobias snapped.
“Marcus Vance knows your face.”
“Marcus hasn't seen me without makeup and high heels in five years,” I said.
“To him, I was Garrett’s fragile trophy wife.”
“He won't look twice at a scrub nurse with a face mask.”
I took the pickup keys from Tobias’s hand.
“Stay with Chen.”
“Make sure Penelope doesn't bleed out.”
“If that baby dies, Garrett wins the moral narrative.”
“He becomes the grieving victim of a double tragedy.”
I drove through the gray morning rain to St. Jude’s Memorial.
Two city cruisers were parked by the emergency intake.
Officers were drinking coffee from paper cups.
I pulled my cap low and walked through the service entrance.
The smell of antiseptic filled my nostrils.
I knew this hospital well.
I had visited Tobias here after the accident that ruined his youth.
I knew the pharmacy was on the fourth floor.
I bypassed the main elevators and took the stairwell.
My heart hammered with every step.
Every shadow looked like Marcus Vance.
I reached the fourth-floor corridor.
The pharmaceutical dispensary was protected by a digital keycard lock.
I stood by the water cooler, pretending to check a chart.
A young resident walked past and scanned his badge.
The lock clicked.
As the door swung shut, I caught the edge with the toe of my sneaker.
I slipped inside.
Rows of refrigerated glass cases glowed under fluorescent lights.
I scanned the labels: Factor VIII... Factor IX... Prothrombin Complex.
I grabbed three vials of the clotting agent.
I slid them into my pockets.
As I turned toward the exit, the glass door swung open.
A man in a navy trench coat stepped into the room.
His gold police shield glinted on his belt.
Detective Marcus Vance.
He was holding a cup of espresso.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
He stared directly at me.
His eyes drifted down from my face to my shoes.
My sneakers were still caked with Rhode Island river mud.
“Hold on a second, nurse,” Marcus said.
His voice was a gravelly baritone.
He reached for his service pistol.
May you like
“Turn around slowly.”
“Keep your hands where I can see them.”
