Chapter 7 - The Interrogation Room
I arrived back at the downtown precinct within fifteen minutes, taking the stairs two at a time to reach the second-floor interrogation suites.
Detective Vance was waiting for me outside Room B, holding a thick stack of printed transcripts and an evidence bag containing a silver locket on a tarnished chain.
“He broke?” I asked, stepping up to her.
“He didn't just break; he imploded,” Vance said, her voice tight with exhaustion and triumph. “When I confronted him with Clara’s missing person file and mentioned the basement floorboards, he realized we weren't just looking at child endangerment. We were looking at a homicide investigation.”
Vance held up the evidence bag.
“He led us to the truth. Clara didn't walk out on them. Three years ago, she threatened to take the girls and go to the authorities after finding out what he was synthesizing in that lab. He sedated her, disposed of her remains beneath the concrete foundation of the backyard shed, and told the neighbors she abandoned the family.”
A cold shudder ran down my spine. The monster we had arrested wasn't just a corrupt pharmaceutical rep; he was a cold-blooded killer who had turned his own home into a prison.
“Did he sign a full confession?” I asked.
“Every word,” Vance nodded grimly. “State prosecutors are already filing capital murder charges alongside federal drug trafficking and child abuse indictments. He’s never seeing daylight again.”
I looked through the glass window of the interrogation room. Michael Carter sat slumped in his chair, his head bowed, his hands shackled to the bolt in the table. The arrogant, untouchable corporate facade was gone forever, replaced by the pathetic reality of a broken criminal facing absolute ruin.
“What happens to Emma and Olivia now?” I asked quietly.
Vance looked at me, a warm, reassuring smile breaking across her tired face. “Child services has already approved emergency placement with a vetted, loving foster family upstate—a retired pediatric nurse and her husband who have a farm with horses and open fields. But...”
She paused, raising an eyebrow.
“But what?”
“They asked specifically if they could keep in touch with the police officer who locked the doors and saved their lives.”
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I felt a sudden, powerful warmth flood my chest. I looked down at my uniform sleeve, smoothing out the fabric where Olivia’s small fingers had rested earlier that morning.
“Consider it done,” I said.
