Chapter 6 - The Trap Snaps Shut
"They don't know you're here," Victoria Sterling said, pulling up a chair beside my hospital bed while Lieutenant Miller stood guard by the door.
I looked at her, confused. "How could they not know? The diner had cameras, the ambulance—"
"We blacked out the dispatch logs," Victoria explained with a tight, calculating smile. "As far as Bradley and Eleanor know, you collapsed somewhere in the woods, or you were picked up by a passing trucker who hasn't reported it. Two hours ago, Bradley filed a missing persons report with the county office, claiming his mentally unstable, heavily pregnant wife wandered off into the cold during an episode of postpartum delirium."
"He’s creating an alibi," I spat, my hands clenching the white hospital sheets into fists.
"Precisely," Victoria said. "He’s preparing to clean the house. Our surveillance drones have been over the estate since dawn. Moving vans arrived thirty minutes ago. Eleanor is currently packing antique silver and personal computers into the back of an SUV. They’re planning to scrub the attic with commercial bleach, burn the bedding in the backyard incinerator, and board a private charter out of Teterboro Airport to Costa Rica by six tonight."
"You can't let them leave!" I cried, trying to sit up, the IV needles pulling against the skin of my forearm.
"We aren't letting them leave," Victoria said, gently resting a hand on my wrist. "We’re letting them commit the final, unpardonable mistake: destruction of evidence and flight to avoid prosecution. But to ensure the federal judge denies bail without a second's hesitation, we need one more thing."
"What?"
Victoria opened her briefcase and pulled out a clean, modern smartphone.
"We need Bradley to confirm his guilt on a live, federal wire. We need him to believe he still has power over you."
My heart jumped into my throat. The thought of hearing his voice again made the phantom taste of the plastic tube surge back into my mouth, filling my throat with nausea.
"I can't talk to him," I whispered, tears spilling down my cheeks. "Victoria, please... I can't."
The prosecutor looked at me, not with pity, but with deep, unyielding respect.
"Clara, look at me," she said softly. "You survived seven months in that attic. You endured what would have broken nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand. You outsmarted two monsters while carrying another human life inside your body. You are not their victim anymore. You are their judge. You have the whip hand now."
I looked down at the monitor on my belly. The steady, defiant rhythm of my daughter’s heartbeat filled the room: thump-thump, thump-thump.
She had fought through poison. She had fought through starvation.
May you like
I took a deep, shuddering breath, wiped the tears from my cheeks, and held out my hand.
"Give me the phone."