CHAPTER 24 #3
Everywhere is not an acceptable answer.
I give the useful ones.
Shoulder.
Head.
Ribs.
Palm.
Not chest.
Not the part still watching Clara at Marla’s, facing a freezer and a dead girl’s promise while my voice gets cut into a weapon outside.
Dr. Imada orders medication.
I want to refuse it because clarity feels like penance.
Then I remember Gideon’s voice.
Do not become another emergency.
I accept the IV.
It cools my arm first. Then my thoughts start to lose their sharpest edges. Not gone. Nothing that convenient. More like someone put padding on the corners of a room still full of furniture I can trip over.
Soto sits near the curtain.
“You okay?” he asks.
I turn my head carefully.
“That question has low standards today.”
“I meant the audio.”
“No.”
“Right.”
He looks young again.
I feel old enough to have known better before Laurel died.
“My sister liked those movies,” he says after a moment.
That is not what I expect.
“Blood House?”
“Yeah. She was fourteen when the first one came out. Too young, probably. My mom was mad. My sister watched it at a friend’s house and then slept with the closet light on for a week.”
I wait.
He rubs his thumb along the edge of his radio. Nervous habit. Human. The world keeps insisting on people in the middle of machinery.
“She liked Clara,” he says. “Said she looked scared but kept moving.”
My throat works once.
No sound comes.
Soto looks at the curtain, not me. “The headlines never made sense to her. Even when she was a kid. She said, ‘Why are they mad at the girl who ran?’”
The medication makes the ceiling blur.
Or the story does.
“Your sister was smart,” I say.
“She is. She’s a public defender now, which is exhausting at holidays.”
A laugh tries to come out and gets caught in my ribs.
Soto looks at me then. “People don’t all believe the first story.”
The sentence is too kind for a hospital bay and too dangerous for a man in my condition.
I look away.
“Enough do.”
“Maybe.”
The curtain opens enough for the nurse to hand Soto a paper cup of water. She hands me one with a straw.
“Hydrate before you become poetic,” she says.
“I’ve been warned against that.”
“By someone smart?”
“Yes.”
“Keep that person.”
The water tastes like plastic and hospital pipes.
I drink anyway.
My brain drifts toward Marla’s.
Cherry pie.
Freezer frost.
Laurel’s canister.
The first copy.
A thought moves through the medication haze and catches on something.
First copy.
Laurel hid one.
Victor hid one.
Gavin wanted everyone to see.
Victor wanted the original gone.
If the canister is at Marla’s, why didn’t Gavin destroy it when he found the booth?
Because he didn’t find it.
Or because he couldn’t access the freezer.
No. Marla said she found it and moved it. Freezer behind pies. Gavin panicked when he heard.
Then who tipped him that Clara was going to Marla’s?
Maybe no one.
Maybe the Stage 14 note was his plan too.
But the media update about Clara fleeing evidence went live before evidence was logged. Someone anticipated her next move.
Not Gavin alone.
Victor’s people are not chasing proof.
They are choreographing how proof will look once found.
The canister isn’t the trap.
The handling is.
“Officer,” I say.
Soto looks up.
“Call Alvarez.”
He stands. “What is it?”
“Tell him not to open the canister in a police lab tied to the studio investigation chain.”
Soto’s face changes. “Why?”
“Because Victor will challenge chain either way. But if it goes through a lab or vendor with studio contract ties, he can claim contamination and maybe switch narrative. Gideon needs independent forensic video preservation. Court order if possible. Multiple witnesses. Avery’s counsel.
Clara’s counsel. Police. No private vendor. ”
Soto is already lifting the radio, then stops. “You got all that from pain meds?”
“I’m better sedated.”
The nurse points at me. “That is not a medical endorsement.”
Soto relays the message.
Static.
Then Alvarez’s voice comes back, faint but clear.
“Copy. Already moving canister to LAPD evidence under camera with Park present. Tell Reed to stay in bed before I make good on radiology.”
Soto looks at me.
“You heard him.”
“I heard a threat. Not the same thing.”
Then another voice comes over the radio.
Clara.
Not close. Not clear.
Background, maybe. She says, “Tell him Molly said the pies are evidence now.”
The radio crackles out.
Medication or not, my mouth moves.
A smile, maybe.
Small. Painful.
Unwise.
I keep it because she’s alive enough to make a joke by proxy.
That counts as news.
A hospital orderly arrives to take me to imaging. The stretcher moves again, ceiling tiles passing overhead in squares. White. Beige. White. A vent. A light. A security camera.
Everything looks like a frame when you have spent too long around people who edit.
Soto walks alongside.
At the turn toward radiology, the emergency department doors open down the hall.
A man enters in a suit.
Not Victor.
Victor’s lawyer.
Same one from the lot. Smooth hair. Calm mouth. Badge clipped to his jacket like it gives him blood type. He scans the room and sees me before security sees him.
Our eyes meet.
He lifts one hand.
Not greeting.
Proof of presence.
Then he turns and walks toward the administrative desk.
“Soto,” I say.
The officer has already seen him.
He speaks into his radio.
Good.
The orderly keeps moving.
I watch the lawyer through the gap as the stretcher turns the corner. He leans toward the desk, says something, and slides a folded paper across the counter.
The hospital hallway eats the rest.
“What was that?” I ask.
Soto does not answer for two beats.
Then his radio crackles.
“Protective custody request filed. Studio counsel claims Malcolm Reed is a material witness under threat from Clara Vane.”
I start laughing.
It hurts.
The orderly looks alarmed.
Soto swears under his breath.
The nurse from earlier appears at the end of the hall like she teleported through annoyance. “Why is my patient laughing in a way that sounds legally infected?”
Soto looks at me.
I look at the ceiling.
No door stain this time.
Only blank white tile.
Victor is not done.
He is not even improvising.
He is closing every door and writing Clara’s name on the locks.
The laughter dies.
“Call Gideon,” I say.
Soto says, “He isn’t your lawyer.”
“No,” I say, staring at the blank ceiling while the stretcher rolls under colder light. “But he’ll know this isn’t about protecting me.”
The hallway turns.
The air smells like metal, bleach, and incoming rain from a vent that should not smell like weather.
“It’s about keeping me away from Clara before I can contradict their story again.”