Chapter 5 - The Suspended Badge
The metal of the service pistol felt heavy and cold as Marcus slid it into his holster, the click of the retention strap sounding like a gunshot in the quiet penthouse. Captain Miller stepped further into the living room, his polished oxblood shoes crunching slightly on a stray piece of gravel near the doorway. The two internal affairs investigators moved past the captain with practiced efficiency, one pulling out an evidence bag while the other secured the open wall safe.
"You're making a mistake, Captain," Marcus said, his voice dangerously low, restrained by years of police discipline. "Look at the files in that safe. Eleanor Kensington didn't just break in here; she's running an embezzlement ring using the foundation's charity funds."
Captain Miller didn't look at the folders. Instead, he pulled a laminated card from his inner coat pocket and tossed it onto the glass coffee table. It landed squarely on top of a stack of design magazines. It was an internal affairs administrative subpoena bearing Marcus’s name and badge number.
"The board of Kensington Industries filed a federal complaint forty-five minutes ago, Vance," Captain Miller said, his tone devoid of personal sympathy. "They didn't report an embezzlement. They reported that your wife kidnapped a surrogate fetus carrying a proprietary genetic asset valued at over fifty million dollars. And your police radio was used to intercept dispatch units to cover her escape."
Marcus stared at the captain, disbelief warring with anger. "A surrogate fetus? Are you listening to yourself? Clara is my wife! That’s our child!"
"According to the legally binding gestational contract filed with the state medical board and countersigned by a federal judge yesterday morning, Clara Vance was merely the carrier," the lead IA investigator chimed in, snapping a plastic evidence seal shut around the manila folders he had pulled from the wall safe. "Eleanor Kensington is the legal biological mother. And your wife was attempting to flee the jurisdiction with the child to extort a billion-dollar settlement."
Marcus felt the room spin. The image of Clara lying on the floor, bleeding and crying out in pain, flashed through his mind. She hadn't just been hiding a secret; she had been running for her life from a corporate machine that viewed human life as intellectual property. And he, the loyal husband and dutiful cop, had just handed her over to an ambulance that might not even be heading to a hospital.
"Where did they take her?" Marcus demanded, taking a threatening step toward the captain. "Which hospital did the paramedics log into the CAD system?"
Captain Miller raised his hand, signaling the two investigators to block the exit. Two sets of cold steel handcuffs materialized in the investigator's hands.
"You're not going to a hospital, Marcus. You're coming downtown with us for questioning," Captain Miller said coldly. "And if you try to pull your badge or use your department clearance to find your wife, I’ll personally charge you as an accessory to corporate kidnapping."
Marcus looked down at his belt, at the radio microphone that had called for an ambulance that may have been a trap. He knew he was outgunned, out-ranked, and utterly trapped in a web spun by people who owned the very laws he had sworn to uphold.
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"You think this is the end of it?" Marcus whispered, his eyes locking onto the captain with a chilling, deadpan intensity. "If anything happens to my wife or my child, I won't need a badge to find every single one of you."
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