Chapter 2 - The Corrupt Badge
The bright lights of the emergency surgical lamp burned into my vision as the doctor finished stitching the deep gash on my forehead.
I felt a profound sense of relief washing over my exhausted body, believing that the nightmare was finally coming to an end.
The hospital administration had moved me to a highly secure VIP recovery suite on the restricted top floor of the building.
I waited patiently for the local police to arrive and formally charge my parents with aggravated assault and attempted extortion.
The heavy door to my new suite swung open, and a tall, broad-shouldered police detective walked into the quiet room.
He wore a wrinkled gray suit, a silver badge clipped to his belt, and a deeply unsettling smirk on his rough face.
He introduced himself as Detective Miller and pulled a small wooden chair right up to the edge of my hospital bed.
I asked him if my mother and brother had been placed into police custody yet.
Detective Miller casually crossed his legs and pulled the tiny digital memory card from his front shirt pocket.
He held the plastic square between his thick fingers and stared at me with cold, dead eyes.
He told me that the hospital security team had handed the evidence directly to him for a formal forensic review.
I sighed in relief, completely unaware of the horrifying truth standing right in front of me.
The detective leaned forward and whispered that it was a real shame the memory card had been corrupted during the transfer process.
My heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second as I tried to process his terrifying words.
He smiled wickedly and told me that the video file was completely blank, meaning there was absolutely no proof a crime had occurred.
I screamed at him that he was lying, and that the video was safely backed up on a secure cloud server.
Detective Miller laughed a dry, hollow laugh and pulled my personal cell phone out of his other pocket.
He dropped my shattered phone onto my blanket, revealing that someone had crushed the device with a heavy hammer.
He informed me that without my phone to access the two-factor authentication, the cloud account was permanently locked and useless.
The corrupt detective stood up from the chair and dropped the tiny memory card onto the floor.
He crushed the plastic card under the heel of his heavy leather boot, destroying the only physical evidence of the brutal attack.
He leaned down close to my ear, his breath smelling heavily of cheap coffee and stale cigarette smoke.
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He told me that my father Richard was a very generous man who always took good care of his friends in the local police department.
The detective turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me completely helpless and entirely at the mercy of my family.
