Chapter 5 - The Confirmation
Officer Vance pulled a small pair of stainless-steel forceps from his belt kit. He leaned deep into the shower drain, the beam of his heavy flashlight illuminating the dark interior of the PVC pipe. The silence in the apartment was deafening, broken only by the soft hum of the refrigerator and Sofia’s quiet hums from the living room.
"Got it," Officer Vance muttered.
Lucia leaned over his shoulder, her trained eye analyzing the specimen as the officer carefully lifted the item out of the pipe and placed it onto a sterile white paper towel on the marble floor.
It was a small, smooth bone fragment, approximately two inches long, showing clear signs of chemical corrosion along its edges. Beside it was a small, discolored metallic object that had been fused to the bone by heat and chemical reaction.
"Is that... a surgical pin?" Lucia whispered, pointing her gloved finger at the discolored metal thread sticking out from the bone fragment.
Officer Vance adjusted his glasses, looking closely. "Looks like an orthopedic titanium plate fragment. Highly specific serial numbers are usually stamped on these."
Mariana stepped toward the bathroom doorway, her hands trembling so hard she could barely hold herself up against the doorframe. "Elena..." she choked out, the name slipping from her lips like a ghost. "Elena had an orthopedic plate in her collarbone after a skiing accident in college. Diego told me about it once..."
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Lucia turned to Mariana, her eyes wide with dread. "Mariana, if Diego brought industrial chemicals into this apartment, he didn't just commit a crime years ago. He was actively disposing of evidence in your home."
👉 Read PART 6 to see the exact moment Diego returned home from the market!
