Chapter 7 - FOUR MINUTES
The bomb squad confirmed there was no explosive device.
The countdown controlled the intravenous pump.
When it reached zero, the machine would release a lethal dose.
Detective Collins’s team disconnected the power with ninety-two seconds remaining.
Michael was conscious but barely able to speak.
Paramedics treated his wound and transported him under police guard.
He kept asking whether Lily was alive.
No one answered until he reached the hospital.
I stood behind the glass outside his treatment room.
Part of me wanted to enter and demand the truth.
Another part wanted never to see him again.
Michael had betrayed my daughter.
He had helped steal her future.
He had watched Evelyn build a case against me.
He had placed a poisoned device where I might use it on Lily.
Whatever fear he felt did not erase those decisions.
Detective Collins questioned him after doctors stabilized him.
Michael admitted taking money from the trust.
It began with fifty thousand dollars.
He had accumulated gambling debts after losing his job.
Evelyn offered to help.
She arranged a fake consulting payment from Lily’s trust.
Michael told himself he would repay it.
Then Sloan demanded more cooperation.
Every new theft gave them another way to control him.
By the time Anna discovered the scheme, Michael had received almost two hundred thousand dollars.
“Did you cut Anna’s brake line?” Collins asked.
Michael began crying.
“No.”
“Did you follow her to the bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted the blue folder.”
“Who damaged the brakes?”
“I do not know.”
Collins placed the insurance photographs in front of him.
“Sloan knew Anna planned to report him.”
Michael shook his head.
“I never saw Sloan near the car.”
“Did Evelyn know?”
“She knew Anna was going to court.”
“How?”
“I told her.”
The room became silent.
Michael had not cut the brakes.
But he had warned the people who wanted Anna stopped.
“Why did you follow Anna?” I asked from the doorway.
Michael looked at me.
His face collapsed.
“I wanted to convince her to wait.”
“You lied to police about being there.”
“I panicked.”
“You lived in my house after she died.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“You were watching us.”
“Evelyn told me she would make sure I went to prison.”
“So you helped her take Lily.”
“No.”
His voice rose.
“I signed the petition, but I never wanted Lily hurt.”
“You replaced the injector.”
“Sloan made me.”
“You still did it.”
Michael closed his eyes.
“He told me it contained saline.”
“He said Lily would receive the real injector from the paramedics.”
“He said the false one only had to prove you were careless.”
“The laboratory found insulin and sedative.”
Michael’s eyes opened.
He looked genuinely horrified.
“I did not know.”
Detective Collins believed that part might be true.
Michael had scratched Sloan’s initials into the device and preserved his fingerprint because he suspected betrayal.
He recorded Evelyn for the same reason.
“What was Sloan trying to force you to say at the clinic?” Collins asked.
Michael looked toward the camera that had recorded his captivity.
“He wanted me to confess that Daniel planned everything.”
“Why?”
“So Evelyn would be released.”
“And Sloan?”
“He would become temporary trustee while the court investigated everyone else.”
Michael took a painful breath.
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“The custody case was never just about Evelyn.”
“Sloan planned to control the trust himself.”
