Chapter 2 - The Bloodstained Evidence
|
I stood watch by Nora’s bed as the night deepened, analyzing the situation with a cold, terrifying clarity that I hadn't felt in years.
Campus security had given me a perfectly rehearsed story over the phone. They claimed the cameras near the north parking structure had mysteriously malfunctioned. The emergency blue-light phones were down for routine maintenance. Nobody had witnessed anything, and every single system that might have helped identify Nora’s attackers had somehow failed at exactly the right moment.
It was far too convenient. In my former world, we called that a sanitized perimeter. Someone had already started erasing evidence before my daughter had even been loaded into the ambulance.
A young ER nurse interrupted my thoughts, hesitantly approaching the bed. She handed me a clear plastic evidence bag containing Nora’s torn Wellington University sweatshirt.
“We found this clenched in her hand when they brought her in,” the nurse murmured before hurrying away.
I held the bag up to the harsh fluorescent light. Something small and rigid had been caught beneath the ripped fabric. I carefully unsealed the plastic and reached inside. It was a piece of heavy cardstock, crumpled and stained with Nora's blood.
Four names were hastily scribbled across it in black ink.
Chad Kensington. Brantley Sterling. Wyatt Holbrook. Preston Caldwell.
My jaw tightened. Kensington’s family controlled half the city’s commercial construction industry. Sterling’s mother served on the federal Armed Services Committee. Holbrook’s father ran a defense tech corporation worth billions. And Caldwell’s family controlled one of the most powerful private banking groups on the East Coast.
These weren't just frat boys. They were royalty. Those boys hadn’t attacked my daughter by chance; they believed their family names made them entirely untouchable.
A throat cleared behind me. The local precinct detective had finally arrived. He barely glanced toward Nora's battered body.
“These cases are complicated, Mr. Miller,” the detective mumbled, looking at his shoes. “No witnesses, no footage. There may not be much we can do.”
I saw his hands physically tremble when he glanced at the names Holbrook and Caldwell on the report. Someone had already gotten to him.
May you like
“Then I suppose your investigation is over,” I said quietly.
Relief immediately crossed his face. He believed I was surrendering to the system. But men had made that exact same mistake in places this country insists never existed.
