Chapter 4 - The Digital Footprint
With the girls safely on their way to the hospital, Daniel returned to his desk. The station was dead quiet now, save for the rhythmic dripping of a leak near the back supply closet.
He sat down at the terminal and pulled up Michael Carter’s file using the badge credentials. What started as a routine child welfare call quickly expanded into a labyrinth of medical records, pharmacy logs, and local property registries.
According to the state database, Michael Carter was a clinical research coordinator at a mid-tier pharmaceutical lab three towns over. He had access to restricted chemical compounds—specifically neuro-suppressants and experimental sedative derivatives designed to manage severe behavioral disorders in pediatric patients.
Daniel cross-referenced the prescription number from the syringe with the state health department's portal.
The screen flashed red: RESTRICTED ACCESS LEVEL 4.
He bypassed the warning using his municipal emergency clearance. The logs showed that over the past six months, Michael had filled thirty-four prescriptions for a compound cataloged as Compound V-12.
The intended recipients listed on the clinical trials were non-verbal patients.
Not Olivia. Not Emma.
Daniel leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes. Why was a father administering experimental trial drugs to his healthy, articulate seven-year-old daughters?
He opened the local missing-child database and pulled up the family history. Michael was a widower. Their mother, Sarah Carter, had passed away three years prior under sudden medical circumstances—heart failure at age thirty-two.
A cold feeling settled in Daniel’s chest. He pulled up the autopsy report from three years ago. The attending physician had noted trace amounts of a synthetic paralytic agent in her bloodstream, though it had been ruled inconclusive due to a lack of chain-of-custody evidence at the scene.
Michael hadn’t just lost his wife. He had been experimenting on her. And now, he had moved on to his daughters.
The station phone rang, breaking the silence like a gunshot.
Daniel snatched up the receiver. “Reed, precinct four.”
“Officer Reed? This is Dr. Vance at County General,” a panicked voice said. “We just got the girls in. Olivia’s blood panels are terrifying. Her liver enzymes are crashing. But that’s not all—we ran the syringe residue you sent with the EMTs. Officer, what kind of monster manufactured this stuff?”
“What did you find, Doctor?” Daniel asked, standing up.
“It’s not a standard sedative. It’s an obedience-compliance neurotoxin. It paralyzes voluntary motor functions while keeping the victim fully conscious and hyper-sensitive to pain. If it had been left in her system another hour, her organs would have shut down completely.”
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Daniel looked at the empty evidence envelope on his desk. “Is Olivia stable?”
“We’ve pumped her stomach and started dialysis, but she’s not out of the woods. And Officer... the other twin, Emma? She’s refusing to let go of our nurses. She keeps whispering that her father has a room in the basement where he keeps ‘the collection.’”
