Chapter 4 - THE LEASH SNAPSWren spun around, her muscles instinctively tightening into a defensive crouch she’d learned in the prison yard.
Standing in the doorway of the archive room was a lean, scarred gray shepherd mix. Its left ear was torn, its coat coarse and weathered, and its amber eyes locked onto Wren with an intensity that made the hair on her arms stand up.
"Patch?" Wren breathed, lowering her hands slowly.
It was him. The exact dog from the Millbrook prison visits—the therapy dog that had broken protocol to sit beside her knee four years ago. But he wasn't wearing a red therapy vest now. He was wearing a tactical harness with a heavy steel D-ring, and the man holding the other end of the leash stepped out from the hallway shadows behind him.
It was Detective Miller.
The same young detective who had stood at the edge of the ambulance bay seven years ago, watching her get cuffed without meeting her eyes. He looked older now, lines etched deep around his mouth, his hair salted with gray at the temples.
"You shouldn't be here, Wren," Miller said quietly, his hand resting on the dog’s harness. "And neither should the dog."
Wren stood up slowly, her eyes darting from the detective to the animal. "How did you find me? I just got out forty-eight hours ago."
"I didn't find you by accident," Miller replied, stepping into the room and closing the heavy wooden door behind him. "I've been waiting for you to get out for three years. Every month. I knew you'd come back here the second you heard Viktor Vance's name on the street."
"You framed me," Wren said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, trembling whisper. "You and your precinct. You needed a scapegoat for Marisol Cade's murder so the Vance Syndicate wouldn't tear the south side apart. You used an orphan with no one to fight for her."
Miller didn't flinch. He didn't look away this time. He met her gaze squarely, and the guilt in his eyes was heavy enough to crush a man.
"I didn't frame you," Miller said heavily. "I saved you. Marisol Cade wasn't killed by a random warehouse fire. She was carrying a ledger that proved Viktor Vance was laundering money through this hospital's pharmaceutical supply chain. When my captain found out I was getting too close, he told me choice number one: plant the keys in your locker and put you away for a crime you didn't commit. Choice number two: they kill you in an alley and pin it on a drug deal gone bad."
Wren stared at him, the room spinning around her. "You let me rot in prison for seven years to keep me alive?"
"I kept you in a place where Viktor’s men couldn't reach you," Miller said, stepping closer. "And I gave you Patch. Do you think it was a coincidence that prison allowed therapy dogs? I paid the handler out of my own pocket every month to bring that specific dog to your cell block. Patch isn't just a rescue, Wren. He was trained by our K-9 unit to track Viktor’s scent. He’s been waiting for this exact night just as long as I have."
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Before Wren could answer, Patch let out a sharp, sudden bark, turning his head toward the end of the hallway.
From somewhere down the corridor came the unmistakable, dull thud of a silenced gunshot.
