Chapter 1 - The Torn Teddy Bear
The precinct lobby was completely frozen in time.
I stared down at the crooked white seam across the teddy bear's stomach.
My partner, Detective Miller, slowly unclipped the holster of his service weapon.
Nobody in the room dared to take a single breath.
I carefully slipped my pen knife from my pocket and sliced the crude stitching open.
A small, heavy glass vial fell onto the floor and rolled directly toward my boots.
It was filled with a thick, glowing white liquid that I had never seen before.
Claire let out a piercing scream and lunged across the desk to grab the vial.
She moved with a terrifying speed that did not match her nervous, shaking demeanor from earlier.
Miller tackled her hard to the floor before her fingers could touch the glass.
David, the little girl's father, suddenly reached inside his heavy winter coat.
He pulled out a silver, suppressed pistol and aimed it directly at my chest.
Before he could pull the trigger, four uniform officers drew their weapons and yelled for him to drop it.
David smiled a chilling, empty smile and slowly lowered his gun to the ground.
He surrendered without a fight, but his eyes never left my face.
I quickly secured the glass vial with a pair of latex evidence gloves.
I rushed the strange liquid down to the basement forensics laboratory for immediate expedited testing.
The head toxicologist scanned the liquid through the mass spectrometer while I paced the room.
His face turned incredibly pale as the results flashed across his computer monitor.
He whispered that the vial contained an untraceable, military-grade nerve agent that caused immediate heart failure.
He told me that just one drop of this liquid could kill a dozen grown adults.
I asked him to immediately scan the surface of the glass for any latent fingerprints.
He dusted the vial carefully and ran the only clean print through the federal database.
The computer beeped loudly, indicating a high-level, classified match.
I looked at the screen and felt my blood run completely cold.
May you like
The fingerprint on the lethal vial did not belong to Claire or David.
It belonged to the Chief of Police, who had just locked the precinct doors from the outside.
