The clinical blue light of the hallway died, replaced by the rhythmic, aggressive flash of police strobes reflecting off the sterile glass. The air in the nursery was stagnant, smelling of burnt wires and the copper tang of my own blood. I clutched the bundle in my arms—the warm, breathing weight of the girl with my eyes—and felt the world narrowing down to the barrel of the weapons pointed at my chest.
Melanie Vance stepped forward, her heels clicking with a lethal, rhythmic precision on the linoleum. She wasn't the socialite I remembered, the woman who had flaunted her affair with Ethan at every gala. She was dressed in a sharp, slate-gray tactical suit, a federal badge pinned to her lapel.
"The Wolfe Protocol didn't die with Eleanor, Grace," Melanie said, her voice devoid of its usual
