Chapter 4 - Web of Deception
I demanded to see Michael. When Detective Marcus finally permitted a ten-minute supervised visit in the holding room, I didn't sit down.
Michael looked broken. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, his tie loosened.
"Sarah, please," he wept, reaching across the metal table. "You have to believe me. I never meant for Emma to get hurt. I swear to God on my life, I didn't know!"
"Didn't know what?!" I screamed, slamming my hands onto the table. "You brought an experimental chemical into our house! You gave her milk every night! Was that you, Michael? Were you poisoning our child?!"
"NO!" Michael sobbed hysterically. "No, Sarah, listen to me! I wasn't poisoning her! I was trying to save her!"
I stopped, frozen in shock. "What are you talking about?"
"Emma was diagnosed six months ago," Michael stammered, his voice breaking into ragged gasps. "She went for a routine routine physical at a private clinic while you were on night shift. They found markers for Niemann-Pick Type C—a rare, fatal neurodegenerative disease. They told me she had two years before severe cognitive decline set in!"
My knees went weak. I held onto the back of the chair. "Niemann-Pick? She... she showed no neurological signs!"
"Because I found a secret trial program at Aegis," Michael confessed, weeping openly. "A proprietary, unapproved therapeutic molecule that stops lipid accumulation in the brain. It wasn't approved by the FDA yet. It was illegal. But the company refused to admit her into the trial because of liability risks!"
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"So you stole it?" I whispered, horrified.
"I synthesized a safe dosage formula based on their white papers!" Michael cried. "I put tiny, micro-gram doses in her juice every morning to protect her brain! But... but two weeks ago, Aegis altered the batch storage protocols at the plant. The chemical must have degraded or mutated into a toxic compound... I didn't know, Sarah! I was trying to save our daughter's life before she lost her mind!"
