Chapter 105: An Accomplice

Actually, Chase didn't want to use a child to threaten the mother, but Madeline was their only lead. They had no choice. Madeline sobbed as she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photo album. The pictures were obviously taken secretly; they all showed the same child, dressed in different outfits, playing at school. Since Madeline worked and her husband was away on a project, their three-year-old attended full-time daycare. She picked him up after work. The child looked a lot like Madeline.

Madeline nearly fainted from crying. Chase gently rubbed her back, handed her phone to Waylon, and replaced her cup with a warm mug. “Drink some water,” he said calmly. “Take your time. Telling us the truth is also a way to save your child. You can't believe people like that will protect him. Tell Mr. Fred everything.”

After drinking half the water, Madeline’s sobs subsided.

“It was about six months ago,” she began, her voice still shaky. “I ran into someone on my way to work. This phone wasn’t even mine—it was his. He dropped it, and I picked it up to return it, but when I chased after him, he was gone.”

“Anyone coming to the hospital must be a patient,” she continued. “Not having a phone would drive someone crazy. I wanted to leave it at the nurses’ station for him to claim.”

“But halfway there, the phone rang.”

She assumed it was the owner’s friend calling, so she answered immediately.

“It was a man’s voice,” she said, her eyes wide with memory. “He told me to open the photo album.”

The man’s voice was strange and mysterious. Madeline was stunned. She didn’t know why, but she opened it. What she saw terrified her so badly, she dropped the phone. It was pictures of her son.

Madeline turned to Chase, the only person she trusted. “He was wearing the same clothes from this morning. It was a photo of him eating at school. It must have been taken in the afternoon, around three or four. Which means whoever it was took the photo and rushed straight to me.”

After seeing the picture, she froze. She had no idea what to do. She spaced out for a long time. Then the phone rang again. This time, she answered immediately. It was the same man.

“Find a quiet place,” he said. “We need to talk. If you want your son to be safe, you’d better do what I say.”

“I found the break room in the pharmacy,” she said. “No one else was around then. Everyone else was on break. I hid inside and locked the door to take the call.”

The man on the phone told her she had to do whatever they said—obtain medicine and leave it in a designated place. At first, Madeline refused.

“I knew it was illegal,” she said. “And without a doctor’s signature, the meds could be traced back to me.”

But the man told her not to worry. Since they were telling her to do it, everything would be taken care of. The first job came two weeks later.

“There was no call this time,” she said. “Just a text. And a picture of my son again, wearing that day’s clothes. When I saw that picture, I couldn’t think of anything else but doing what they said. I think it was a patient with a heart condition. I gave them antidepressants instead and swapped out their heart meds.”

Waylon wrote down the patient’s name for later investigation. After it was done, money appeared in Madeline’s account. Apparently, this person wasn’t just threatening her—they were also paying her. It felt like a sweet reward after a hard slap.

“Not really,” Waylon shook his head. Knowing the law, he explained, “By accepting money, Madeline became an accomplice. If she hadn’t taken the money, it would have been coercion. But now, she’s in this with them. They dragged her in on purpose.”

Chase hadn’t expected the person behind this to be so calculating. But the more he listened, the more he felt this didn’t sound like Larry. Larry wasn’t smart enough to pull this off. Chase couldn’t shake the feeling that something didn’t add up.

Madeline continued. “The second time was about two months later. Honestly, I wasn’t as scared anymore. After the first job, I couldn’t sleep for days, afraid the cops would show up at my door.”

“But you still cost someone their life,” Waylon said coldly. “You should be afraid. No matter what you did, you broke the law.”

Madeline lowered her head. “The second person fell down the stairs during work hours. They passed out and had a brain hemorrhage. I followed his instructions again and replaced the meds with something fatal. I even checked later; there really was a doctor’s signature on the file.”

“Who was it?” Chase asked quickly.

“Sean Norris,” Madeline said without hesitation.

The name sounded familiar. Chase had probably worked with him before. He immediately pulled up Sean’s records.

“Cardiology,” Chase muttered.

Waylon got straight to the point. “What about Aimee? Was she your next target?”

Madeline had stopped crying. She sighed when she heard Waylon’s question. “Yes. But this time, they didn’t tell me to take any meds. There wasn’t even a signed prescription. They only told me to keep an eye on Room 316 and report if anything unusual happened.”