Chapter 2

But right then, I could feel it clearly. Beyond the pain, the skin around my eye was turning red and starting to itch.

That wasn't normal. There had to be something else mixed into that water gun. The thought sent an involuntary shiver through me.

The young man with the stab wound on his hand was shouting now, furious. "You all saw how hard this little brat went at me, right? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Spray the gun, right now, or we're dragging you to the station ourselves!"

The father's eyes darted left and right, but his finger wouldn't touch the trigger.

It wasn't because he'd actually loaded the gun with acid. It was because he didn't know what was in it.

His daughter was the kind of kid who'd dump ink, glue, even piss into a water gun on any given day, and he'd probably never once checked. What if this time, just this once, it really was something dangerous?

His hesitation only confirmed what everybody had already suspected.

The scene exploded into chaos.

"Call the cops! Now!"

"Don't let him run! Box them in!"

Within five minutes, police officers from the Southgate precinct arrived in full gear. Three or four of them fanned out in a semicircle, carrying riot shields and catch poles. Two pinned the man down, and the handcuffs clicked shut around his wrists.

"Officers, you've got the wrong guy! He's the one who made it all up! He set me up!"

The man's face was drenched in sweat, and he was still screaming at the top of his lungs. But the lead officer didn't flinch. He sealed the cracked remains of the water gun in an evidence bag.

"Save it for the station. Move."

At the precinct, my eye could see well enough again, but the itching wouldn't let up. A paramedic ran some tests.

The results came back. There was no concentrated sulfuric acid in the water gun. As for whether it was plain tap water or something else entirely, that would have to wait for the full lab analysis.

The second he heard that, Derek Kessler's arrogance came roaring back. "Officer, I told you! This guy deliberately caused people to panic!"

I looked at him coldly. "Your daughter stabbed someone with a knife. Everyone there saw it. You really think you're the innocent one here?"

Derek shot out of the interrogation chair like he'd been spring-loaded.

"That was self-defense! Who told you to stand there screaming and scaring my kid? She's six years old!

"She doesn't know any better! She grabbed a toy knife and waved it around a little. So what?"

The officer beside him slammed a palm on the table. "Derek! Watch your tone. We already pulled the security footage.

"That was no toy knife. It was a sharpened folding blade. If that young man hadn't pulled his hand back fast enough, the tendons in his hand would've been severed."

Derek scoffed and tried to dodge the point. "She found it somewhere. She's a kid, she doesn't know what it is.

"Why aren't you going after the guy who incited panic? Why are you hounding my daughter and me? How is that fair?"

The interrogation room door swung open.

A woman strode in, polished from head to toe. She wore the latest Chanel suit, a Birkin hanging from her arm, and she carried herself like she owned every room she walked into. Her gaze swept the space with open contempt before it settled on me.

"Honey! Thank God you're here! This guy's trying to bleed us dry over our daughter!"

I looked toward the voice.

I recognized her. Sandra had been one of the most talked-about entrepreneurs of the past two years, featured across half the business press. But money and influence didn't give her or Derek the right to hurt people and walk away.

Once she'd gotten the full picture of what happened, Sandra didn't look the slightest bit rattled. She walked up to me, perfectly composed.

"Listen, young man. What happened earlier was just a misunderstanding. My husband's a bit rough around the edges, not the most polished guy. Don't hold it against him."

I said nothing. I just stared at her.

When I didn't respond, she pulled a checkbook from her pocket and scrawled a number across it with a flourish.