Mrs. Henderson slowly swept the blonde strands behind Chloe’s ear.

Nurse Henderson looked twenty years older than she had three hours ago.

Her immaculate green scrubs were wrinkled, her hair disheveled by the damp wind, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. In her shaking hands, she held a thick manila folder.

“You shouldn't be down here,” she said, her voice trembling in the gloom.

I climbed up the embankment, ignoring the mud soaking through the knees of my jeans. “You knew,” I said, my voice shaking with cold fury. “You knew what was in this water.”

“I didn't know *what* it was!” she cried, tears spilling over her lashes. “I swear to you, Sarah, I didn't know it was... that it was alive!”

“You told me she was faking!” I advanced on her, closing the distance until she had to take a step back against the chain-link fence. “You rolled your eyes! You let my baby sit there in agony for forty minutes while that thing dug its claws into her carotid artery!”

“Principal Vance made me write that log!” Henderson broke down, sobbing into her sleeve. “He threatened my pension! He threatened to revoke my nursing license!”

She thrust the manila folder into my chest.

“What is this?” I asked, gripping the damp cardboard.

“Two other children came to my clinic this week,” Henderson whispered, checking over her shoulder toward the empty school parking lot. “Lucas Bradley on Monday. Mia Chen on Tuesday morning. Both of them had red, raised rashes along their wrists and ankles after the science field trip. Lucas had a low-grade fever; Mia couldn't move her fingers.”

“Where are they?” I demanded.

“Their parents took them to private clinics out of county,” Henderson said. “Principal Vance called the families personally. He told them the school would pay all their medical bills under the table from the district’s discretionary insurance fund, provided they signed non-disclosure agreements. He told them it was just an allergic reaction to poison ivy.”

“Why would he protect Cytec?”

“Because Vance’s brother is the chief environmental compliance officer for Cytec Industrial!” Henderson gasped, her voice raw. “And Cytec is the primary corporate donor for the entire school district’s new STEM wing! If the state environmental board finds out they were discharging illegal bio-waste into the creek where children play, Vance goes to prison, Cytec gets shut down, and the whole town goes bankrupt!”

I clutched the folder to my chest. Inside were the unedited, original medical incident logs from Monday and Tuesday—before Vance had forced her to forge the clean versions.

“Why are you giving this to me now?” I asked.

Henderson looked up at me, her face pale under the gray clouds. “Because I saw that thing move on your daughter’s neck. I have grandchildren, Sarah. If I let that little girl die just to save my retirement, I’ll burn in hell.”

Suddenly, the headlights of a car swept across the tree line.

A black Audi turned into the gravel service road beside the fence.