“You told Judge Hanley forty minutes ago that Clara was faking her blackouts.”
Carter stepped away from my gurney.
His hand-welted leather jump boots made a clean, concussive *tack… tack… tack* against the marble as he walked toward the defense table:
“You told this court that she was an unstable, dramatic woman who needed her seven-year-old child removed from her custody.”
Carter stopped two paces from Daniel Whitaker.
He did not draw a sidearm.
He pulled a small, clear polyethylene evidence bag from his breast pocket, laying it flat atop Daniel’s four-hundred-dollar leather legal brief:
*THUD.*
Inside the bag…
Sealed beneath a green chain-of-custody tag from the **United States Army Criminal Investigation Division**…
Was an antique, hand-engraved silver tea canister labeled in Patricia’s delicate calligraphy: *Herbal Breakfast Blend.*
Beside the canister lay a digital mass-spectrometry readout from the laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base:
`SAMPLE ANALYSIS: COMPOUND V-09 // SUFENTANIL-CHLORPROMAZINE`
`SOURCE: RESIDUE EXTRACTED FROM RESIDENCE AT 44 SHADOW RIDGE`
`CONCENTRATION: 850 PPM (LETHAL DOSE THRESHOLD: 120 PPM)`
`MATCH CONFIRMED: STERLING-VANCE EXPERIMENTAL BATCH #441`
