Chapter 2 - THE BADGE UNDER THE TUXEDO
Isabel Reyes arrived from the kitchen with flour on her sleeve and a look of panic that turned into anger the moment she saw her daughter among police officers.
“What happened to her?” she demanded.
“She's physically all right,” Detective Ortiz assured her. “She witnessed something frightening. I'd like to speak to her with you present, after she's had a chance to calm down.”
Isabel took Lucía into her arms. “You should have been in the staff room.”
“I wanted my bear,” Lucía said. “Nana took him upstairs to wash his ear.”
Isabel looked toward Carmen, who lowered her head.
Dante approached carefully. “Lucía noticed a man touching Valeria's bag. She's helped us understand what may have happened.”
Isabel tightened her embrace. “I don't want her involved in whatever trouble you people have brought here.”
“Neither do I.”
“You live in a mansion where people arrive with armed guards. My daughter doesn't belong in your dangerous business.”
Dante accepted the accusation. “You're right that she should be protected. I'm working with the police. She and you can leave as soon as they say it's all right.”
Lucía lifted her face. “Mommy, the man had a badge.”
Isabel froze.
“What badge?”
“The one with the green line. It looked like the one you keep in the drawer.”
Isabel's hand went to her chest. “My hospital badge?”
She worked nights as a medical records technician at St. Catherine's Hospital. The Moretti engagement party had been a rare extra shift, arranged because her hospital wages and household bills never seemed to align. Lucía sometimes spent evenings with Carmen when Isabel worked late. But the idea that a business partner of Dante's might possess one of her hospital credentials was absurd.
“Can you show us your badge?” Ortiz asked.
Isabel reached into her apron pocket and produced a plastic card with a faded photograph. Its lower edge carried a green stripe marking her authorization for the records department. Lucía nodded.
“Like that. But his had a different picture.”
Ortiz looked at Dante. “Who is Esteban Salazar?”
“An investor. He sits on the board of a company that supplies hospital software. He's been trying to purchase a controlling interest in our clinical analytics subsidiary.”
The detective's pen paused. “Would that purchase include records systems?”
“Yes. We were discussing the transaction tonight.”
“Interesting.”
Dante had built a reputation as a ruthless negotiator, but his mother's death from a delayed diagnosis had changed what he wanted from his companies. He had recently demanded that the proposed acquisition include strong patient-data protections and an independent security review. Esteban had resisted both conditions. The disagreement had become public enough that financial reporters were calling the deal endangered.
Dante looked toward the place where Esteban had been standing.
The man was gone.
Ortiz checked with an officer. Esteban had asked to use the restroom and had not returned. Police found him near the rear service exit, where he was trying to persuade a valet to retrieve his car from the secured garage. He insisted he had a migraine and wanted to go home.
He agreed to accompany the officers for an interview but refused to unlock his phone without legal advice.
Meanwhile, Dante received a call from the hospital. Valeria was stable. The emergency physician said a medication-related reaction was possible, but no conclusions could be drawn until laboratory work and a fuller history were complete. She remained under observation. Dante could visit briefly once she was settled.
“Please tell her I didn't leave,” he said.
He found Lucía sitting with Isabel on a bench in the staff corridor. The teddy bear had one ear hanging by a loose thread, and the girl had started to pick at it as though the small damage were something she could fix.
“I'd like to ask one thing,” Dante said to Isabel. “You can say no.”
Isabel nodded warily.
“Did you ever lose a hospital badge?”
“A replacement was issued last month,” she said. “The first one disappeared from my locker. The hospital said it had been deactivated.”
“Did you report it?”
“Yes. I have the email.”
“Please give it to the detective, not me.”
She studied him. “You really don't want to handle this yourself?”
“I've made too many assumptions about people tonight already.”
A faint, humorless smile crossed her face. “That might be the smartest thing you've said.”
Before Dante left, Lucía held out the teddy bear. “His name is Captain Buttons.”
“That's an excellent name.”
“He has a secret pocket in his back.”
Dante smiled. “Does he?”
She nodded, then looked suddenly alarmed. “Nana put something there.”
Isabel sat up straighter. “What?”
Lucía turned the bear around. A short length of stitching along its back was newer than the surrounding fabric. She pressed her thumb beneath the seam and pulled out a folded piece of blue paper.
It was a small receipt, torn from a laboratory packaging form. A batch number was printed beneath a barcode, along with the words ST. CATHERINE'S — RESTRICTED INVENTORY.
Ortiz was summoned immediately. She took possession of the paper, recorded where it had been found, and asked Isabel whether she recognized the number.
Isabel stared at it. “This isn't from my department.”
“Whose is it?”
“The research pharmacy. They receive certain medications for controlled studies. Only authorized personnel can enter.”
“Do you know anyone who works there?”
Isabel hesitated. “Carmen's niece, Teresa. She was hired six months ago.”
Dante turned toward Carmen, who had been standing near the linen closet. She was crying openly now.
“Why did you hide a pharmacy receipt in a child's toy?” he asked.
“I wanted it somewhere Beatrice wouldn't look,” Carmen said.
“You could have given it to the police.”
“I was afraid they wouldn't believe me. And I was afraid for Teresa.”
Ortiz stepped closer. “What happened to your niece?”
Carmen sat heavily on a bench. “She told me a clinical-trial medication had gone missing. She thought a senior employee had signed it out under someone else's name. She copied a receipt before the records were changed.”
“Why bring it here?”
“Because Beatrice was asking about it,” Carmen whispered. “She said Teresa could lose her license and end up in prison unless I kept quiet. She told me to make sure Lucía stayed upstairs tonight.”
The room fell silent. Isabel put an arm around her daughter and moved farther from Carmen.
Before leaving for the hospital, Dante asked the catering manager to confirm that every employee would be paid for the full shift, regardless of the investigation. The manager seemed surprised that he had remembered the issue. Isabel, overhearing, did not thank him. She had been promised fair pay when she took the job; receiving it was not a gift. Dante was beginning to recognize how often wealthy people expected gratitude for keeping commitments that should never have been negotiable.
Detective Ortiz made a separate note that the badge Lucía described had been glimpsed beneath Esteban's jacket rather than clipped openly to his clothing. That detail mattered because a visitor might carry a pass without wearing it. But a child could also mistake one card for another. Ortiz promised Isabel she would test the account against records rather than assume every observation was exact. Isabel appreciated being told how an investigation worked instead of being asked to place blind trust in it.
Dante felt a cold, aching disappointment. Carmen had known him since childhood. She had held his hand the day his mother was buried. He wanted to believe her fear. He also needed to know whether she had endangered a little girl to hide her own involvement.
“Did you know someone planned to put a syringe in Valeria's purse?” he asked.
Carmen shook her head. “Not until I saw Esteban near the table. Then I understood why Beatrice had been so insistent.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That Valeria needed to be discredited before she could stop the merger.”
Dante stared at her.
Valeria had worked as a pediatric health advocate before meeting him. She had challenged parts of the acquisition during the past month, asking why patient consent forms had disappeared from certain study records. He had considered her concerns important, but not urgent enough to delay the transaction completely.
Now his fiancée was in a hospital bed, with a suspicious syringe near her purse, while people connected to the transaction were trying to silence witnesses.
Ortiz asked Carmen to give a formal statement. She agreed.
When Dante reached the hospital after midnight, Valeria was awake. Her face was pale against the pillows, and a small adhesive dressing covered the place where blood had been drawn.
He sat beside her.
“Did you speak with Esteban tonight?” he asked.
She nodded. “He told me I had to stop asking questions about the children in the research program.”
“What children?”
Valeria stared at him.
“Dante,” she whispered, “I was going to tell you after the engagement party. I found medical records for children who never consented to the study. Some of them were treated as if they'd agreed to experimental medication.”
Dante felt his stomach drop.
“Who signed the approvals?”
“Your aunt's foundation,” Valeria said. “And someone used your mother's name to make the paperwork look legitimate.”
May you like
She squeezed his hand.
“The syringe was never the real secret. It was meant to make me look unstable before I could show you the files.”
