He swallowed. “Then someone wants it to look like me.”
Ortiz watched him silently. “Where were you between eight and ten tonight?”
“At home. Then driving around looking for Emily.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
At that exact moment, Alan’s pager buzzed. He glanced down, frowned, and muttered, “That’s odd.”
“What?” I asked.
“Emily’s CT just uploaded.” He looked at me, unsettled. “Richard, come with me.”
We stepped into the radiology room. Her spinal images glowed on the screen—sharp, ghostlike.
I had been a surgeon for thirty-six years. I knew the human body. I knew what belonged inside it.
This didn’t.
Something small and metallic was lodged beneath the skin near her left scapula, invisible from the outside. Not a bullet. Not surgical hardware.
Alan zoomed in.
It was a capsule.
A tracking implant.
And before either of us could speak, the power in the room went out.
Every screen went black.
A second later, the first scream echoed down the hall.
