The room went completely still.
I knelt beside her.
“Who was it?”
Emma looked toward the door.
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“What did she look like?”
Emma closed her eyes.
“She had red hair.”
I looked at Michael.
He looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know anyone with red hair.”
The detective entered the room.
“Let’s slow down.”
He sat beside Emma.
“Sweetheart, where did you meet this woman?”
“At school.”
My heart sank.
“What?”
“She waited near the playground.”
“How many times?”
Emma held up three fingers.
“Three.”
The detective exchanged a look with the doctor.
“What did she give you?”
“A little white pill.”
“Did she tell you what it was?”
“She said it would make my headaches go away.”
I felt sick.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Emma started crying.
“She said if I told you, something bad would happen to Daddy.”
I looked at Michael.
He was staring at the floor.
The detective noticed.
“Mr. Johnson, I need you to come with me.”
Michael looked at me.
“I swear I didn’t know about the woman.”
I didn’t answer.
The detective led him outside.
I stayed beside my daughter.
Then Emma whispered:
“She knew your name, Mommy.”
PART 5 — The Woman in the Parking Lot
The police reviewed school security footage.
Three separate days showed the same woman waiting near the playground.
Red hair.
Dark coat.
No school badge.
No reason to be there.
But the footage revealed something else.
On two occasions, she was standing beside a silver sedan.
The license plate was registered to a medical research company.
My blood ran cold.
I knew the company.
Michael had worked with them several months earlier.
The detective asked me if I recognized the name.
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“It’s one of the companies that supplies our hospital.”
He looked at me.
“And your husband?”
“He worked on a clinical research project with them.”
The detective’s expression changed.
“Does he have access to experimental medications?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
That afternoon, investigators searched Michael’s office.
They found a missing box of medication.
The serial number matched medication from the hospital’s research department.
But there was something even more disturbing.
The box had been opened.
Several pills were missing.
And beside it was a handwritten list.
There were six names.
Emma’s name was the last one.
PART 6 — Why Emma?
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