Chapter 4 - The Shadow of the Vance House
Forty-five minutes later, the paramedics had taken the infant—whom the nurses tentatively named "Grace"—to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St. Jude’s Hospital. Leo had refused to get into the ambulance without Miller, his small fingers locked onto the officer's leather belt strap with an iron grip that required Miller to ride along in the back of the emergency vehicle.
Once the child was stabilized under a heating lamp, Miller sat beside Leo in a private examination room. He held a cup of warm orange juice out to the boy, who drank it in violent, desperate gulps before setting the cup down with a trembling clatter.
"What's your name, son?" Miller asked softly, pulling a small leather notepad from his pocket.
"Leo," the boy whispered, looking down at his freshly bandaged knees. "Leo Vance."
Miller’s hand froze over his notepad. The pencil tip snapped cleanly off under sudden pressure.
"Vance?" Miller repeated, his voice dropping an octave. "As in... Julian Vance?"
Leo flinched at the sound of the name, his entire body tensing as if expecting a physical blow. He didn't answer; he simply tucked his head deeper into his chest.
Miller stood up slowly, stepping out into the sterile white hallway where Officer Chen was waiting near the desk phone.
"Tell me you're joking," Chen whispered, her face pale under the bright LED lights. "Julian Vance? The real estate developer? The guy running for City Council?"
"The kid's name is Leo Vance," Miller said, his jaw clenching until the muscle along his cheek throbbed. "He has bruises on his chest consistent with a heavy belt buckle. Defensive wounds on his forearms. A lacerated scalp. And he found a newborn tossed in a dumpster behind Vance’s abandoned industrial park on 12th."
"Julian Vance’s wife, Clara, was pregnant," Chen remembered, her hand instinctively flying to her mouth. "I saw her at the charity gala three months ago. She was showing."
"She wasn't just showing," Miller corrected, his eyes turning to ice as the horror of the situation assembled itself in his mind like a gruesome jig-saw puzzle. "She gave birth tonight. And someone took that child, put her in a trash bag, and threw her out like garbage."
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"Why would a millionaire politician toss his own newborn daughter into a dumpster during a hurricane?" Chen asked, her voice trembling.
"Because," Miller said quietly, looking back through the small glass window of the room at the battered nine-year-old boy, "Julian Vance isn't a politician. He's a psychopath. And Leo knows it."
