Chapter 5 - KAREN’S CONFESSION
Karen Mitchell looked nothing like the woman who had accused me in the rain.
When Detective Santos brought me into the interview room, Karen sat wrapped in a gray blanket with both hands around a paper cup.
Her hair was unwashed.
Her cheeks were hollow.
There was a bruise beneath her jaw.
The moment she saw me, she began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
I stopped three feet from the table.
Those two words were not enough.
“You told Adrian I threw his baby into a dumpster.”
“I know.”
“I went to jail.”
“I know.”
“Women threatened me because they thought I tried to murder a seven-month-old child.”
Karen’s face crumpled.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“My son.”
That stopped me.
Santos closed the door behind us.
Karen reached inside the blanket and pulled out a photograph.
A boy around nine years old stood outside a school wearing a Cubs cap.
“His name is Mason.”
I looked at her.
“They threatened him?”
“They sent me photographs every day. School. Soccer practice. My mother’s house.”
Her fingers shook.
“They knew everything.”
“Who?”
Karen looked at Santos.
Then at me.
“Dante Moretti.”
I wanted to believe I had misunderstood.
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve known Dante for four years.”
“Why would he want Emma dead?”
“He said he didn’t.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“He told me Emma wasn’t supposed to die.”
“That baby was sedated and left in a dumpster in freezing rain.”
Karen covered her mouth.
“That wasn’t the plan.”
“What was?”
“I was supposed to sedate her enough to sleep. Then carry her through the service exit at 11:30.”
“Who was waiting?”
“I never saw.”
“Then what happened?”
Karen swallowed.
“I changed my mind.”
Santos leaned forward.
“Why?”
“Emma woke up.”
Her eyes filled.
“She looked at me.”
Karen pressed a fist to her chest.
“She smiled.”
My anger faltered.
“I’d cared for her since she was six weeks old.”
“You still drugged her.”
“I know.”
“You still carried her outside.”
“I know!”
Her voice cracked.
“I thought about Mason. I thought if I didn’t do it, they would kill my son.”
She wiped her face.
“When I reached the alley, there was nobody there.”
“So you put Emma in the dumpster?”
“I heard someone coming.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
Karen looked ashamed.
“I panicked.”
“You could have handed her to me.”
“I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know if Dante had sent you.”
“So you hid her in garbage?”
“I thought I would come back in seconds.”
“But when you saw me carrying her toward the mansion?”
Karen broke down.
“I knew what would happen if Dante realized I had failed.”
“So you accused me.”
“Yes.”
I stared at her.
Part of me wanted to scream.
Another part remembered Lucia.
What would I have done if someone sent me daily photographs of her?
I didn’t know.
That frightened me.
“Why are you blaming Dante now?”
Karen’s face went pale.
“Because he came to kill me.”
Santos sat straighter.
“When?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Where?”
“At the motel Elena arranged.”
“How did you escape?”
“He didn’t know I had left ten minutes earlier.”
“Why did you leave?”
Karen pulled something from her pocket.
A flash drive.
“I remembered this.”
Santos immediately took it.
“What is it?”
“Security footage.”
My pulse jumped.
“You said the cameras were disabled.”
“The main system was.”
“Main system?”
“There’s a nursery monitor connected to a separate backup recorder.”
I turned toward Santos.
“Did Adrian know?”
Karen shook her head.
“I installed it after Emma had trouble breathing one night. I wanted to monitor her from the kitchen.”
“What does the footage show?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why is it important?”
“Because Dante didn’t know it existed.”
Santos left to have the drive copied.
I remained with Karen.
“There’s something you’re not telling us.”
Her eyes dropped.
“What?”
“The photograph of Vincent Moretti you gave my mother.”
She looked up sharply.
“Elena told you?”
“Where did it come from?”
Karen hesitated.
“Dante’s office.”
My stomach tightened.
“Dante has a recent photograph of his supposedly dead father?”
“It was hidden in a drawer.”
“Was there anything written on it?”
Karen nodded.
“What?”
“A date.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
So Vincent Moretti was alive.
And Dante knew.
Santos returned twenty minutes later carrying a laptop.
Her expression was different.
“We have the footage.”
Adrian arrived with Dante.
The tension changed instantly.
Karen recoiled against the wall.
Dante stopped.
“What the hell is she doing here?”
Karen began trembling.
Adrian noticed.
“Dante.”
“She’s lying.”
“She hasn’t said anything yet.”
“She put Emma in that dumpster.”
“After someone threatened her son.”
Dante’s face went cold.
“And you believe her?”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“I haven’t decided what I believe.”
Santos turned the laptop around.
The video showed Emma’s nursery.
Timestamp: 11:02 p.m.
Karen entered.
She checked the hallway twice.
Then she removed something from her pocket.
A syringe.
I felt sick.
She injected medication into Emma’s bottle.
Two minutes later, someone else entered the nursery.
Dante.
He stood behind Karen.
The audio was faint but clear enough.
“Eleven-thirty,” video-Dante said.
Karen whispered something.
“What if she wakes up?”
“She won’t.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
Dante leaned closer.
“Then remember Mason.”
The real Dante lunged toward the laptop.
Santos stood.
“Don’t.”
Adrian didn’t move.
His face had become stone.
Dante looked at Karen.
“You edited this.”
Karen shook her head violently.
“You threatened my child!”
“It’s fake!”
Santos pointed at the screen.
“We’ll verify it.”
Dante looked toward Adrian.
“Boss.”
Adrian’s voice was almost gentle.
“Where is your father?”
Dante froze.
There it was.
The smallest mistake.
Adrian saw it too.
“Your father is alive.”
Dante’s face emptied.
Karen whispered, “He knows.”
Adrian took one step forward.
“Where is Vincent?”
Dante looked around the room.
Two officers stood near the door.
Santos’s hand rested near her weapon.
Dante laughed once.
Quietly.
Then he looked at me.
“You have no idea what your mother did.”
“What does that mean?”
He ignored me.
Adrian moved closer.
“You used my daughter.”
Dante’s smile vanished.
“You used everybody.”
Adrian grabbed his jacket.
Santos shouted, “Valente!”
Dante slammed his forehead into Adrian’s face.
Everything exploded.
A chair overturned.
One officer rushed forward.
Dante grabbed him, drove him into the wall, and bolted through the door.
Santos chased him.
Adrian followed.
I stayed with Karen.
Gunshots sounded in the corridor.
Lucia’s hospital floor.
My blood froze.
“Lucia.”
I ran.
Adrian shouted behind me.
“Isabella!”
I reached Lucia’s room.
Empty.
Again.
Not again.
I screamed her name.
Then I heard her from the bathroom.
“Isa?”
She emerged holding her IV pole.
I almost collapsed.
“You’re okay.”
“I was throwing up.”
I grabbed her.
“Don’t ever leave the room without telling me.”
She stared at me.
“I literally went six feet away.”
“I don’t care.”
Adrian entered.
Blood ran from his nose.
“Dante got out through the ambulance bay.”
Santos appeared seconds later.
“We’ve alerted every patrol unit.”
Lucia looked between us.
“What happened?”
Before I could explain, she frowned.
“Why does Dante have my wristband?”
I turned.
“What?”
She pointed toward the floor.
A hospital identification bracelet lay near the doorway.
Her name printed across it.
LUCIA ALVAREZ.
I picked it up.
Lucia checked her wrist.
Her own bracelet was still there.
“It’s a copy,” Santos said.
My mouth went dry.
“Why would Dante have a copy of Lucia’s hospital band?”
Adrian understood first.
“He wanted access.”
“To what?”
Lucia’s upcoming surgery.
My heart stopped.
We ran to the nurses’ station.
Santos ordered staff to audit every medication order.
A pharmacist called back ten minutes later.
There had been an unauthorized change.
A new medication had been added to Lucia’s surgical file.
Dr. Lang read the name.
His face turned white.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“If she’d received the dose listed here during surgery…”
He swallowed.
“Lucia’s heart could have stopped.”
My legs nearly failed.
Dante had not only targeted Emma.
He had targeted my sister.
Why?
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Dante standing beside a silver-haired man.
Vincent Moretti.
Alive.
Below it was a message.
YOUR MOTHER KNOWS WHY THIS STARTED.
Then another.
ASK HER WHO REALLY KILLED DANIEL.
I looked through the glass toward Elena’s room.
My mother had told me my biological father was murdered because he planned to expose the Valentes.
But suddenly I understood something.
She had never actually told me who killed him.
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And judging by the terror on her face when I entered her room holding the phone…
she knew.
