"Wren's kid can't breathe and needs help, like, right now," the officer said.
Hearing that, Robert bolted out of the police station, yelling as he ran to the car, "Ethan, unlock the car!"
The car beeped, and the locks clicked open.
Robert turned to Sophia in the back seat, "Sophia, there's a kid who needs you."
They sped back to the police station lobby. An officer was carrying a six-year-old boy, with Wren trailing behind, her eyes puffy from crying and her voice all raspy.
"What are his symptoms?" Sophia asked.
"He suddenly couldn't breathe, and the Heimlich didn't work," an officer quickly replied.
Sophia took the child and laid him flat on the ground. Robert whipped off his jacket and placed it under the boy.
The kid's mouth and face were turning blue, and he was making this weird noise from his throat.
Sophia lifted his throat with one hand and tilted his chin up with the other, opening his airway.
She unbuttoned his shirt. The hollows above his collarbone, below his sternum, and between his ribs were visibly sunken.
"Severe laryngeal edema," she said. "If we don't act fast, he's not gonna make it."
She turned to the officer behind her, "Got a needle?"
"No."
"Alcohol?"
"Yes."
"Small knife?"
"I have this," the officer said, pulling out a police-issue knife, which was way too big.
Sophia asked for a ballpoint pen. She quickly grabbed the pen, sprayed it with alcohol, and after feeling the child's trachea with her left hand to find the right spot, she deftly inserted the pen tip into his trachea.
The weird noise from the kid's throat stopped immediately. His blue lips started turning red. Wren finally broke down, collapsing to the floor in tears.
"A kid showed up with three retractions, a barking sound, and trouble breathing. Severe laryngeal edema of unknown cause. Did a cricothyrotomy with a ballpoint pen."
As Sophia called the hospital emergency center, Robert already knew what had gone down.
When the cops got to Wren's house, she had just brought her kid home and then got into the police car with them. Before that, nothing seemed off.
On the way to the station, her kid complained about a sore throat, so the officer gave him a bottle of water.
But after they got to the station, the kid suddenly couldn't talk, so the officer called the hospital and tried the Heimlich maneuver.
Robert asked Sophia, "Could laryngeal edema be caused on purpose?"
Sophia looked up. "Only if the patient has a history of allergies."
"My kid and I are both super allergic to milk," Wren said anxiously.
"Officer Davis, someone's setting me up," Sophia said, looking dead certain.
She had said before that she was lured to the crime scene by three calls from a mysterious person. Conveniently, there were two recordings to back her up.
This case was getting more and more confusing. Anesthetics, surgical knives, allergies—stuff a doctor would know. Everything seemed to be pointing the investigation in a certain direction.
Maybe Sophia, in the act of killing, subconsciously used her medical tools and knowledge, exposing herself. And now she was making up recordings to create a fake murderer to clear her name.
Or she was innocent, and there really was someone using medical methods to kill, trying to throw the cops off.