Part 3His Needle Made Them Sleeping Beauties

Her eyes darted around the room. She was crumbling.

"We’ll check the prints and run a tox screen on the residue," Miller said dryly. "Ma'am, you’re coming with us."

Two officers hoisted her up.

"I’m not going! You can't arrest me! My son is a minor!" she shrieked. The kid, Jaxon, seeing his mother restrained, finally broke down into genuine, snot-nosed sobbing. The malicious bravado was gone.

I followed the police out. As I passed them, I stopped. I leaned in close to Vanessa, my voice a whisper only she could hear.

"Pray," I said. "Pray that it’s just red ink."

"Because if there is anything in that needle, I will make sure your family rots in a cell."

She looked up at me, eyes filled with pure venom. "You just wait. Conrad is coming. When he gets here, you’ll be begging me to settle."

I forced a smile that felt more like a grimace. "Settle? Lady, if that needle is clean, I’ll eat it. But if it’s dirty? God himself couldn't save you."

I walked out into the daylight. The sun was blinding, but I felt freezing cold. Bone deep.

The ambulance was waiting. As the paramedics cleaned the wound, the smell of antiseptic cleared my head, but my mind was stuck on the needle.

Those blue lines. That dark red residue. And the name.

Conrad Hughes.

If I remembered correctly, he was the CEO of Mercy Hill Medical Group. The biggest private healthcare conglomerate in the state.

A hospital tycoon.

His son walks around with a specialized puncture needle. His wife acts like she owns the law.

This wasn't just a bratty kid.

What was in that needle?

A terrifying thought began to take shape in the back of my mind. Maybe I hadn't just been exposed to a disease. Maybe I had stumbled into something much darker. Something that went deeper than a prick on the neck.

The air in the interrogation room at the precinct was thick enough to choke on.

I had a bandage on my neck and a preliminary lab report in my hand. I was on PEP—post-exposure prophylaxis. The doctors said the critical window was 72 hours.

These 72 hours were my lifeline.

Vanessa was sitting opposite me, legs crossed, checking her nails. The kid, Jaxon, was slurping a juice box the cops had given him, staring at me with that same dead-eyed defiance.

"Alright, let’s cut the act," Vanessa said, dropping her Hermès bag onto the metal table with a heavy thud.

"You want money. Just say it. Five grand? Is that enough?"

"Take the check, sign the NDA and the waiver, and we’re done." She pulled out a checkbook, her pen hovering, looking at me like I was something she’d scraped off her shoe.

I didn't blink. I just crinkled the medical report in my fist.

"Too low? Fine. Ten grand."

"Don't be greedy, sweetie. That’s probably more than you make in a year serving coffee or whatever you do."

"Take it, buy yourself some vitamins, and stop pretending you’re dying." She scribbled a number, ripped the check out, and flicked it across the table.