Chương 4
Dr. Harris raised his voice. “If he dies while you wait for permission, you will all have made the same decision.”
Elena reached beneath her apron.
Her phone was in the pocket where staff rules said it was not allowed.
She dialed 911.
Cole stepped toward her.
Adrian’s hand lifted from the bed by less than an inch.
Cole stopped.
The emergency operator answered.
Elena gave the address.
By the time the ambulance reached the mansion, the rain had thickened into silver sheets across Lake Michigan. Red light moved over the rain-streaked windows and across the pale walls of the bedroom. The security men opened the gates only after Dr. Harris threatened to meet the paramedics outside himself.
Uniformed responders entered with equipment that made the room suddenly smaller. They asked questions nobody answered in the right order.
“What did he take?”
“We don’t know.”
“How long has he been altered?”
“Twelve days.”
“Any known substances?”
“Possibly two liquids.”
“What kind?”
“Unknown.”
“Who is the patient’s next of kin?”
Vanessa said, “I’m his fiancée.”
Adrian, barely conscious, said, “No.”
The word came out rough and quiet.
The paramedic leaned closer. “Sir?”
“Not her.”
Vanessa’s face did not move.
Elena looked away.
The ambulance crew found his pulse, attached their own monitor, transferred him onto a stretcher, and covered him with a thermal blanket. One of them asked why there was cash on the bed. Cole said it was irrelevant.
The paramedic replied that nothing in a possible poisoning scene was irrelevant.
Chicago police arrived three minutes later.
The house stopped belonging to Adrian.
That may have frightened him more than the poison.
Officers separated everyone before the stretcher reached the hallway. Dr. Harris handed the bottles and tea cup to a responding sergeant with an explanation of how he had handled them. Cole produced the photographs taken before the jewelry box had been opened. Doyle gave the time from the security clock. Vanessa demanded her lawyer again.
Elena sat with Lily on a marble bench beneath a painting of Adrian’s grandfather. She had dusted the carved frame that morning.
Lily’s shoes did not reach the floor.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked.
Elena brushed wet hair from her forehead. “No.”
“I left the laundry room.”
“Yes.”
“You said not to.”
“Yes.”
“So I’m a little in trouble.”
Elena almost laughed. The sound caught behind her teeth.
“You are in the kind of trouble we discuss later.”
“When?”
“When my heart comes back down from my throat.”
Lily considered that. “Can that happen?”
“It had better.”
Across the hall, Vanessa stood with two officers near the bedroom doors. She had asked for a coat but refused Elena’s offer to retrieve one. Someone finally brought her a gray wool wrap from the front closet. It hid most of the gold dress but not the engagement ring.
Vanessa kept twisting it.
Lily watched.
Elena turned her daughter’s face toward her. “Do not stare.”
“She said she’d blame me.”
“I heard.”
“She said children like me disappear in big houses.”
Elena went still. “When?”
“Before I hid.”
“That is not what you told Mr. Moretti.”
“I forgot the exact words.”
“Lily.”
“I didn’t forget. I didn’t want to say them.”
“Why?”
Lily looked toward Vanessa. “Because she was looking at me.”
Elena’s hands began to shake.
She folded them in her lap so Lily would not see.
The officer who interviewed them introduced herself as Detective Nora Bell. She was in her forties, with rain darkening the shoulders of her coat and a crease between her eyebrows that deepened whenever someone used the phrase family matter.
She took Elena and Lily into the library, where shelves of leather-bound books rose toward a ceiling painted with clouds. Lily stared upward while Bell switched on a recorder.
“This isn’t court,” the detective said. “You can take your time.”
Elena nodded.
“I’d like to speak with Lily separately, with a child specialist present, but not tonight unless we need to. For now, I want basic facts. Elena, what is your relationship to Adrian Moretti?”
“I work here.”
“How long?”
“Six years.”
“And before that?”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
Bell noticed.
“I worked for his family when I was younger.”
“In what role?”
“Housekeeping.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“Did you know Mr. Moretti personally?”
Elena looked at Lily.
The child was still staring at the painted clouds.
Bell lowered her voice. “I’m asking because Ms. Vale claims you arranged this accusation to gain money or influence.”
Elena’s face grew hot. “She would say that.”
“She also said your daughter resembles him.”
Lily’s eyes came down from the ceiling.
Elena said, “Vanessa says many things when she is afraid.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“No.”
“Is Adrian Moretti Lily’s father?”
Lily looked from the detective to her mother.
Elena had imagined this question in grocery-store lines, in hospital waiting rooms, while folding Adrian’s shirts, and once in the church bathroom after Lily asked why other children had fathers at the school concert.
She had imagined answering with dignity.
Instead, she said, “This is not the time.”
Detective Bell leaned back. “It became the time when a witness in a poisoning investigation appeared to have an undisclosed relationship to the victim.”
“He does not know.”
Lily stopped swinging her feet.
Bell’s pen remained above the paper. “Mr. Moretti does not know he is her father?”
Elena’s eyes filled before she could stop them. She hated herself for that. Tears made truth look theatrical, and she had spent years surviving by never giving powerful people a reason to call her dramatic.
“No,” she said.
Lily whispered, “Mom?”
Elena reached for her.
The child pulled back.
It was not far. Only a few inches. It felt like a door closing.
“You said my father lived far away.”
“He does.”
“In this house?”
Elena closed her eyes.
Detective Bell switched off the recorder. “We can stop.”
May you like
“No,” Elena said. “If we stop, it will still be true.”
Lily’s mouth had gone flat in the guarded way Adrian’s did when he was hurt. That resemblance was no longer something Elena could tuck behind a pink bow.
