Chapter 3 - The Blood on the Linoleum
Detective Miller did not waste another second in the hospital room. Within forty-five seconds of the notification pinging on my phone, she had Julian Vance and Eleanor ushered into the hallway by two uniformed hospital security officers. Eleanor’s outraged shrieks echoed down the linoleum corridor, bouncing off the doors of the maternity ward until an elevator chime finally swallowed them whole.
“Mrs. Alvarez,” Miller instructed, keeping her hand on her duty holster as she moved toward the door. “Stay with Emma. Let no one in except the attending nursing staff. I’m placing an officer outside this door right now.”
“On my life,” Elena said, crossing herself and taking my hand again.
Miller pulled her radio from her shoulder clip. “Unit twelve-B, this is Miller. I need a forensic tech and a CSU team at two-forty-eight Meadow Lane immediately. We have an active crime scene with biological evidence. Seal the perimeter. If anyone named Brianna Vance or Cody Vance approaches the property, detain them for felony investigation.”
I lay back against the pillows, my heart hammering against my ribs. In Singapore, it was three in the morning. Ryan had been waiting in an international departure lounge at Changi Airport when the notification reached his laptop. I could picture him: sitting under the harsh terminal lighting, his broad shoulders hunched over his ruggedized ThinkPad, watching the high-definition security feed of his sister driving her fist into his wife’s pregnant belly.
I pulled Elena’s phone toward me with a shaking hand. A text message from an international number flashed across the screen:
*“I watched it. Oh my God, Emma. I watched it. I’m boarding Singapore Airlines Flight 12 to LAX now. Transferring to Boston. I land at 4:00 PM. Don't sign anything. Don't let Eleanor near my children. I’m coming to burn their world down.”*
I let out a long, ragged exhale. The tears came again, but they weren't tears of helplessness anymore. Ryan knew. The lie was dead before it even had twenty-four hours to breathe.
***
Three miles away, on the tree-lined suburban street of Meadow Lane, yellow crime scene tape was already fluttering against the autumn breeze.
Officer Marcus Hayes of the local precinct ducked under the tape, holding a high-intensity forensic flashlight. Inside my kitchen, the smell of copper and stale water still hung thick in the warm air.
“Watch your footing,” the lead forensic investigator, a weary woman named Sarah Jenkins, warned from near the kitchen island. She was crouched down in white paper booties, taking macro photographs of the shattered tumbler. “The blood trail starts three feet out from the island. Look at this impact pattern.”
Jenkins aimed her blue-wavelength UV light at the quartz counter.
Beneath the specialized light, the invisible story of the afternoon glowed with blinding clarity. A series of smudged handprints—my fingers, slipping down the polished stone as my knees gave out—were clearly visible on the front face of the island. But on the top surface, directly beside where the charging pad had rested, were distinct, ridged impressions.
“Latent prints on the edge of the stone,” Jenkins muttered, carefully applying magnetic black powder with a camel-hair brush. “Two distinct sets. One matches the victim’s small ring sizes. The second set… longer fingers. Acrylic nail impressions pressed directly into the dust layer.”
“Did she try to clean it?” Hayes asked, shining his flashlight toward the floor.
“She wiped the island counter with a porous textile—looks like knit wool or cashmere,” Jenkins replied, pointing to the faint, swirled drag marks in the fine dust. “Classic amateur mistake. She wiped the surface grease, but she pressed the fibers so hard she left microscopic thread transfers in the blood splatter. And look here.”
Jenkins moved the UV lamp toward the cabinet beneath the sink.
At ankle height, clearly stamped in drying crimson, was the distinct diamond-tread pattern of a luxury riding boot. Size eight. The sharp, high-heeled indentation had cut directly through a dried drop of my blood, smearing it three inches toward the back door.
“She stepped in the victim’s hemorrhage before she ran,” Hayes said, whistling low through his teeth. “That’s not a fall. You don't get an external footprint stamped into the blood pool of a woman who supposedly tripped over her own feet.”
“And she didn't leave through the front,” Jenkins added, pointing her beam toward the back patio door. “Look at the handle. Blood transfer on the interior deadbolt. Somebody with sticky hands unlocked this from the inside and bolted down the deck.”
Outside, on the front lawn, a sleek black Mercedes sedan pulled up to the curb.
The driver’s side door opened, and a man in an expensive track jacket and heavy gold chains stepped out onto the asphalt. It was Cody.
His real name was Cody Rourke. He was thirty-five, an enforcer for an illegal bookmaking ring operating out of the back rooms of several sports bars in the north metro area. For six months, he had been Brianna Vance’s shadow—first as her high-rolling boyfriend who introduced her to private poker games, and later as the terrifying creditor demanding the $150,000 she had blown on online baccarat and cocaine.
Cody stared at the yellow crime scene tape stretched across my front porch. He saw the police cruisers, the crime scene van with its rear doors swung wide, and the flashbulbs strobing behind the sheer curtains of the kitchen window.
He reached into his jacket, pulled out an encrypted burner phone, and hit speed dial.
“Brianna,” Cody said, his voice flat, icy, and lethal.
“Cody! Did you get the money?” Brianna’s voice was frantic, screeching through the speaker from whatever hotel room she was hiding in. “My mother said she’s taking care of it! She sent Julian to the hospital with the conservatorship papers! We’re going to have the trust unlocked by tomorrow morning—”
“Shut up,” Cody cut in, watching two uniformed officers step onto the porch with evidence boxes. “Shut your stupid mouth, Brianna.”
“What? Why?”
“Meadow Lane is crawled with state forensics,” Cody said, taking a slow drag from a cigarette, his cold eyes tracking an officer carrying a brown paper evidence bag containing the bloodstained dining chair. “There’s four cruisers, a CSU van, and yellow tape on the trees. Your sister-in-law didn't just go to the hospital. She called the wolves.”
Brianna made a small, pathetic squeak on the other end of the line. “No… no, she couldn't have. She was unconscious! She was bleeding out! Eleanor told me she was going to handle the police—”
“Your mother couldn't handle a parking ticket right now,” Cody hissed, dropping his cigarette and grinding it out with the toe of his sneaker. “Listen to me carefully, you dumb rich bitch. If the cops pull you in, you keep my name out of your mouth. If I hear one syllable about that sports ledger or the one-fifty you owe the table, you won't make it to your first preliminary hearing. Do you understand me?”
“Cody, please! You have to help me hide! My mother said Ryan is flying back—”
May you like
Cody ended the call. He removed the SIM card from the phone, snapped it in half between two thick fingers, and tossed it into the storm drain at the corner of Meadow Lane. Then he put the Mercedes in drive and vanished into the suburban traffic.
***
