Chapter 4 - The Pharmacy Bag
Rachel drove back through the rain with Officer Harris, the note and prescription copy in a sealed evidence sleeve on the console between them. The 24-hour pharmacy listed on the paper sat only six minutes from the apartment. The overnight pharmacist remembered Nora immediately because she had come in soaked through, clutching a crying toddler’s prescription and glancing over her shoulder every few seconds. “She kept asking how long it would take,” the pharmacist said. “Then she saw someone outside and went pale.” The man behind the counter turned his screen toward them. In the grainy security video, Nora stood near the register in a sweatshirt and wet jeans, looking terrified. A tall man in a dark hood appeared outside the glass doors, waiting under the awning. Nora grabbed the medicine bag before it was fully stapled, left too quickly, and looked back once as she crossed the parking lot. The man followed her into the rain.
The video did not show what happened next, but it showed enough. Rachel felt it in her chest before she said it out loud. “He intercepted her.” Harris nodded and called it in. On the drive back to the complex, Rachel replayed every detail Lily had offered: the dark stairwell, the chair under the door, the way Nora had told her not to bother anyone unless it was a real emergency. She had not gone out for herself. She had gone out because Leo needed medicine. She had still taken time to barricade the apartment and leave instructions. That note had not been written by a careless mother. It had been written by a woman who feared something might happen to her on the way back.
When they returned, the gossiping neighbors were suddenly interested in helping. A teenager mentioned hearing shouting behind the building. An older man admitted he’d seen a dark pickup parked near the alley but “didn’t think it was his business.” Rachel bit back the answer she wanted to give. She and Harris followed the alley behind the complex with flashlights cutting through the rain. Near the basement service entrance, Rachel found the empty pharmacy bag plastered to the concrete under a drainpipe. One bloodless knuckle-print streaked the side where wet fingers had crushed it. Beside it lay a silver house key and the torn strap from a woman’s purse. Rachel looked at the basement door. It stood slightly open.
