Chapter 3 - The Woman Emma Remembered
Emma's finger pointed toward the tall mirror behind Alejandro.
For an instant, everyone stared at their own reflections.
Then a woman appeared in the doorway reflected in the glass.
She wore the gray uniform of the senior housekeeper. Her name was Maribel Soto, and she had worked for the Moretti family since Alejandro was sixteen.
The nice lady, Emma said.
Maribel stopped.
Rocco moved first. He crossed the room and took her wrist before she could step backward.
What is this? Maribel demanded.
Alejandro held up the pink bow.
Did you fix Emma's hair after lunch?
Maribel looked from the bow to the child.
Yes. It had come loose in the kitchen.
Did you keep the other one?
Of course not.
Emma frowned.
You put it in your pocket.
Maribel's expression changed only slightly, but Alejandro saw it.
Search her, he said.
Rocco found a ring of keys, a rosary, tissues, and a folded list of room assignments. No pink bow. No vial. No weapon.
Maribel lifted her chin.
I have served this family for thirty-two years. Her voice shook with anger. If that means nothing now, then shoot me and finish the insult.
Alejandro studied her.
He remembered Maribel bandaging his scraped hands when he was a boy. He remembered her hiding Luca in the pantry during the night their father was killed. He remembered her standing beside his mother's coffin, dry-eyed because someone had needed to manage the mourners.
Loyalty was not innocence. In his world, betrayal often wore the face one trusted most.
Where were you when the lights failed? he asked.
In the servants' hall with twenty witnesses.
Who had access to your uniform today?
The laundry staff.
Sarah stiffened. The laundry wing was her responsibility that week.
Gabriel Voss noticed.
Convenient, he said. The maid works near the uniforms, her daughter identifies Maribel, and her daughter's bow appears beside the bullet. Perhaps the obvious answer is the correct one.
Sarah faced him.
My daughter saved Alejandro. Why would I poison him and then let her stop it?
To earn trust, Gabriel replied. A failed assassination followed by a heroic rescue gives you access no servant would otherwise receive.
Emma pressed against Sarah's leg.
Alejandro's voice chilled.
You are accusing a four-year-old child of participating in an assassination plan.
I am accusing adults of using children. We have all seen worse.
The room went quiet because Gabriel was right about that.
Doctor Crane stepped forward.
Alejandro needs rest, not an amateur trial. The toxin may have delayed effects. I want blood samples immediately.
Alejandro looked at him.
What toxin?
Crane hesitated.
We do not know yet.
Then why did you call it a toxin rather than an allergen?
Crane's eyes narrowed.
Because someone added it to your wine.
You arrived after the footage was erased.
Rocco looked sharply at the doctor.
Crane spread his hands.
Everyone in the west wing was told what happened.
By whom?
No one answered.
Alejandro turned to Rocco.
Find the first person who used the word poison after the attack.
Rocco nodded and spoke into his radio.
Luca rose from his chair.
This is madness. We are trapped in a house while someone shoots through windows, and you are interrogating grammar.
Words reveal what people know, Alejandro said.
Luca paced toward the fireplace.
Then ask the child what else she knows. She seems to be the only witness anyone trusts.
The cruelty in his tone made Sarah pull Emma closer.
Emma looked at Luca and whispered something into her rabbit's ear.
Alejandro heard only one word.
Shiny.
What did you say? he asked.
Emma looked embarrassed.
Nothing.
Tell me.
She pointed toward Luca's left hand.
His cuff links were black onyx, not silver.
That one was shiny before, she said.
Luca looked down.
What was shiny?
The little moon on your sleeve.
I have worn these all day.
Emma shook her head.
At breakfast you had silver circles.
Luca laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
She is four.
Children notice what adults dismiss.
Alejandro remembered the security footage. A silver cuff link. A dark sleeve.
Luca had attended breakfast in a navy jacket. Alejandro could not remember the cuff links.
Bianca could.
You wore Father's set, she said slowly. The round silver ones with the engraved M.
Luca turned on her.
I changed after spilling coffee.
Where are they now? Alejandro asked.
In my suite.
Rocco sent two guards.
While they waited, no one spoke. The house seemed to listen with them. Rain began tapping against the windows. Emma climbed into Sarah's lap and hid her face.
The guards returned eight minutes later.
We searched the suite, one said. The cuff links are not there.
Luca's face hardened.
Someone took them.
Perhaps, Alejandro said.
A radio crackled.
A guard in the security room reported that a fragment of deleted footage had been recovered from a backup drive. It showed the corridor outside the study ten minutes before Alejandro drank the wine.
They transferred the video to the library monitor.
A figure in a dark suit crossed the hall. The face was hidden by angle and shadow. On the left sleeve gleamed a round silver cuff link.
Luca stepped closer.
Then the figure turned slightly.
Not enough to show a face.
Enough to reveal a limp.
Everyone in the family knew that limp.
It belonged to Gabriel Voss, who had been injured in a courthouse bombing twelve years earlier.
All eyes shifted toward the attorney.
Gabriel did not run.
He reached slowly into his jacket.
Three weapons aimed at him.
He withdrew a folded white handkerchief and placed it on the table.
If I wanted Alejandro dead, he said calmly, he would be dead.
Then prove the man in the footage is not you, Luca said.
Gabriel looked at the screen.
I cannot.
Alejandro's gaze became unreadable.
Take him downstairs.
Rocco approached.
Before he touched Gabriel, Emma lifted her head.
That man walks wrong, she said.
Everyone looked at her.
Gabriel walks like this.
She dragged her right foot.
But the man on the screen dragged his left.
The footage had been mirrored.
Someone had altered it.
And whoever had done so knew Gabriel's injury well enough to manufacture the mistake.
A sudden explosion thundered beneath the floor.
The library shook. Books fell. The monitor shattered.
Smoke pushed through the vents.
Rocco shouted into his radio.
A reply came through static.
May you like
The medical wing was on fire.
And the blood sample taken from Alejandro minutes earlier had disappeared.
