He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.
“Whoever did this…” the doctor’s jaw tightened. “The bruising on her arm suggests she was dragged. The water exposure… this is assault, John. I have to call the police. It’s mandatory reporting.”
“I know,” I said. I looked through the glass window. Lily was sleeping, hooked up to IVs, a warm air blanket over her small body. “Make the call. But tell them not to go to the house yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m handling the extraction,” I said.
I walked to the locker room where I kept a spare set of clothes in my medical bag. I took off the soaking wet hoodie. I took off the grease-stained jeans.
I put on my dress uniform. The dark blue jacket. The pants with the gold stripe.
I pinned the ribbons on my chest. The Silver Star. The Bronze Star with Valor. The Purple Heart.
I looked in the mirror. The tired eyes were gone. They were replaced by the eyes of a predator.
Back at the house, Sarah was pouring her third glass of wine. She was on the phone with her friend, laughing.
“Yeah, I soaked them,” she bragged, kicking her feet up on the coffee table. “It was hilarious. You should have seen him, looking like a drowned rat. Maybe he’ll finally get a job to pay for a hotel. I’m doing Emily a favor, really. Tough love.”
She took a sip. “Honestly, I don’t know why she married him. He has zero ambition. I basically run this house.”
She didn’t notice that the streetlights outside had gone dark. It wasn’t a power outage. It was a localized grid cut.
She didn’t notice the wifi signal on her phone drop to zero.
She didn’t notice the subtle vibration of heavy tires rolling onto the asphalt of the driveway—tires designed to run silent.
