Chapter 5 - The Web of the Sister
The realization was a physical blow.
Clara. My sister.
The one who had been calling me every hour, pretending to be worried about Laura, insisting that she needed to move into our house to "help with the transition."
"She’s been in debt to an offshore betting syndicate in Macau for three years, Daniel," Detective Thorne said, opening the folder to reveal a series of financial transactions. "They’ve been threatening her life. She needed that trust money to survive. But Laura’s father’s will was ironclad: the trust only goes to Clara if Laura dies without living descendants."
"So she hired someone," I said, the room spinning around me. "She hired that technician."
"We intercepted the gray Dodge Caravan on Interstate 35," Thorne said. "The driver was a man named Thomas 'the Spark' Vance. He’s a disgraced former maintenance engineer for the hospital system who has been doing 'clean-up' work for various criminal elements in Houston. We found three vials of potassium chloride and a duplicate key card to the hospital’s service elevator in his glove box."
"Did he confess?"
"He didn't have to," Thorne said. "We found a series of encrypted text messages on his phone from an unregistered burner number. The messages gave him the exact room number, the schedule of the nurses' shift changes, and the location of the red and white outlets."
"And the burner phone?" I asked.
"We traced the signal," Thorne said, looking at me with a solemn, determined expression. "The phone is currently active. And according to the tower pings, it’s inside this hospital."
"Inside?"
"She’s in the family waiting room on the second floor, Daniel," Thorne said. "She came here to 'be close to the family' during the emergency."
I didn't wait for him to finish.
I turned and ran toward the elevators, my boots pounding against the linoleum.
"Daniel, wait!" Thorne called out behind me, but I didn't stop.
I took the stairs three at a time, my lungs burning, my mind screaming with a single, protective fury.
I burst through the doors of the second-floor waiting room.
Clara was sitting on one of the vinyl couches, a cup of coffee in her hands, her face arranged in an expression of quiet, saintly grief. When she saw me burst through the doors, her eyes widened, a flicker of pure, unadulterated terror crossing her face before she quickly masked it.
"Daniel!" she cried, standing up and dropping her coffee. "Is she okay? Is Sophie—"
"You monster," I roared, lunging across the room.
Thorne and two security guards burst through the door behind me, grabbing my arms and pulling me back before I could reach her.
"Daniel, what are you talking about?" Clara screamed, her voice rising in a pitch of frantic, defensive hysterics. "You're out of your mind! The stress is getting to you!"
Detective Thorne stepped forward, holding up a small, black plastic burner phone he had just pulled from her purse on the table.
"Clara Collins," Thorne said, his voice flat. "You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit capital murder."
Clara looked at the phone, then at me.
Her face changed. The sweet, concerned sister vanished, replaced by a cold, venomous sneer that made her look like a completely stranger.
"You always got everything, Daniel," she hissed, her voice dropping into a low, gravelly whisper as the guards pulled her arms behind her back. "Dad’s love, the house, the money... and now this perfect little family. I was drowning, and you wouldn't even let me stay in your guest room."
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"You tried to kill a baby, Clara," I said, my voice shaking with a disgust so deep it felt like poison in my mouth. "Your own niece."
"She wasn't even a person yet," Clara spat, as they dragged her through the doors. "She was just a mistake."
