Chapter 3 - Poison in the Nursery
Elena wasn’t just an ordinary schoolteacher. Before stepping into the classroom, she had spent four intense years working in digital risk assessment and forensic auditing for corporate fraud cases before leaving the burnout behind. She knew how people lied. She knew how paper trails worked. And above all, she knew how arrogant people got right before they destroyed themselves.
Three weeks before the fall, Elena had returned home early from a solitary ultrasound appointment to find the third-floor nursery door slightly ajar.
Through the narrow crack, Elena watched Vanessa standing beside the white wooden crib. Vanessa held a small amber dropper bottle, carefully squeezing three clear drops of liquid into the daily prenatal vitamin bottle sitting on the changing station.
Elena didn’t scream. She didn’t rush in. Instead, she lifted her phone and zoomed in, recording the entire sequence in crisp high definition through the pinhole camera she had already embedded in the nursery's floral wallpaper three days prior.
When Vanessa turned and caught Elena standing in the doorway, she didn't flinch. She simply smiled, capping the bottle and slipping it into her designer handbag.
"You really think you're going to carry this baby to term, Elena?" Vanessa asked, her voice silky smooth. "Julian doesn't want it. Evelyn certainly doesn't want a charity case's bastard running around these halls. If you had any dignity left, you’d pack a single suitcase and take the five-hundred-thousand-dollar settlement Julian’s lawyer drafted."
"This is Julian's child," Elena said quietly, her hands resting flat against her stomach.
"Not for long," Vanessa whispered, brushing past her with a suffocating wave of jasmine perfume. "Accidents happen in big, old houses all the time. Watch your step on the stairs, sweetie."
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Elena had taken the vitamins straight to a private toxicology lab that afternoon. The results came back forty-eight hours later: heavy, concentrated doses of misoprostol—an aggressive abortifacient.
That was the exact moment Elena called Detective Marcus Ruiz at the precinct.
