Chương 2
“He came into the service pantry before dinner.”
Julian straightened.
“I asked for ice.”
Mara kept her eyes on Nathan. “You asked where Mr. Cole was sitting.”
“I’ve sat across from him for years.”
“You asked whether the seats had changed.”
Julian’s voice sharpened. “Because there were flowers where there usually aren’t.”
Nathan looked at the arrangement in the middle of the table. White ranunculus and dark green leaves, low enough that everyone could see over them.
Mara said nothing.
Nathan said, “What else?”
She swallowed.
“He asked which plate was yours.”
Julian pushed his chair back an inch.
Marcus ended his call.
“Sit still,” Marcus said.
“I am sitting still.”
“Then keep doing it.”
Julian looked at Nathan.
“You know me.”
The sentence did more damage than anything else he could have said.
Nathan felt Lily’s fingers close around the sleeve of his navy jacket.
He looked down at her.
She whispered, “He waited until you turned.”
Nathan remembered turning.
Mara had asked him something about Lily’s school folder. Nathan had twisted in his chair to answer while Lily showed him a paper crown she had made that afternoon. It had been blue construction paper with silver stars stapled along one side. He had told her it looked like something a bankrupt king would wear.
She had laughed.
For perhaps seven seconds, his back had been partly turned to the table.
Seven seconds.
“When did you see him do it?” Nathan asked.
“When you said my crown was bankrupt.”
Despite everything, Mara closed her eyes briefly.
Nathan nodded.
“What did he do?”
Lily looked toward Julian, then quickly back to Nathan.
“He had the little shiny thing in his hand.”
“The vial?”
She did not know the word.
“The tiny bottle.”
“What did you see?”
“He put some on your meat.”
“Did you see it come out?”
She nodded.
“He did it fast.”
Julian exhaled through his nose.
“This is a child.”
Nathan turned.
“That is the first true thing you’ve said in five minutes.”
“You’re interrogating her in front of me.”
Nathan stopped.
Julian was right about that.
Nathan hated that he was right about anything.
He looked at Lily.
“No more questions.”
“But—”
“No more tonight unless somebody whose job is asking questions needs to talk to you. Okay?”
She studied his face.
“Okay.”
Nathan reached for his water, then stopped before touching the glass.
The room had become an arrangement of evidence.
His plate. His fork. The napkin. The vial. The wine. The small silver sauce boat near his left hand.
He pulled his fingers back.
Marcus noticed.
“Don’t touch anything else,” he said.
Nathan gave him a look.
Marcus shrugged once.
“You pay me to be irritating before you pay me to be polite.”
Lily stared at Marcus.
Then she giggled.
It was tiny and inappropriate and exactly what the room needed.
Julian looked almost offended by it.
Nathan sat back.
Sirens were still too far away to hear.
For the next six minutes, nobody had anywhere useful to put their eyes.
Mara took Lily to the sofa just beyond the dining room but kept the table in sight. Marcus stood between Julian and the hall. Nathan remained in his chair.
Julian tried twice to speak.
Nathan stopped him both times.
On the third attempt Julian said, “I want my attorney.”
Nathan nodded.
“You should.”
That seemed to bother Julian more than a threat would have.
When the police arrived with paramedics, Nathan discovered that being Nathan Cole did not make a contamination scene move faster.
If anything, it made everybody more cautious.
The first officer asked everyone to step away from the table. Another documented where each person had been sitting. A paramedic checked Nathan although he repeatedly said he had not swallowed the food. Nathan submitted to blood pressure, pulse, questions about dizziness, nausea, chest discomfort, anything unusual.
“No.”
“Any chance you took a bite before the girl stopped you?”
“No.”
The paramedic looked at the plate.
“You sure?”
Nathan thought about it.
Dinner had begun with soup.
The steak had been served afterward.
He had cut it twice before lifting the first piece.
“I’m sure.”
Lily, wrapped in a cream-colored throw Mara had taken from the sofa, watched the paramedic attach a clip to Nathan’s finger.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
The paramedic hid a smile.
Nathan said, “No.”
“You lie when you say shots don’t hurt.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m trying to encourage you.”
“That’s lying.”
Mara turned her face away.
The paramedic gave up hiding the smile.
Nathan looked at Lily.
“We’ll discuss ethics after midnight.”
“I have school.”
“Then tomorrow.”
That was when he realized tomorrow was still expected to exist.
The thought made his stomach tighten.
Not from poison.
From what would have happened if Lily had been looking at her plate instead of his.
A detective arrived forty minutes later, a woman named Elena Ruiz who wore a dark gray coat and shoes that looked practical enough to survive several winters. She introduced herself without appearing impressed by the apartment, the view, Nathan’s name, or Marcus’s presence.
Nathan liked her immediately and decided not to show it.
She separated them.
Julian’s attorney had arrived by then, along with another man from the firm Nathan recognized but did not speak to. Julian stopped answering questions.
The vial disappeared into an evidence bag.
So did Nathan’s plate, the sauce boat, several utensils, Julian’s napkin, and eventually portions of both men’s meals.
Lily objected when an officer took Nathan’s fork.
“That’s ours.”
The officer crouched.
“I’m borrowing it.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“It matches all the other ones.”
“I’ll try not to lose it.”
“You better not.”
Nathan rubbed his forehead.
“Mara.”
“I’m not correcting her,” Mara said quietly. “She saved your life. She can harass the police for one evening.”
Detective Ruiz looked at Nathan.
“Your employee?”
“Household manager.”
Mara glanced at him.
It was technically true.
May you like
He had never called her that before.
Nathan didn’t know why he had tonight.
