Chương 7
Vanessa set down the glass. “He has enemies on his own payroll.”
“So you protected his cash by placing it beneath a blanket while he was unconscious?”
“He wasn’t unconscious.”
“The paramedics described him as barely responsive.”
“That was later.”
“And the child saw you?”
“The child was coached.”
“By her mother?”
“Yes.”
“To say you poisoned tea before they knew a bottle would be found in your ring box?”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened.
Winn leaned closer. “You are not dealing with one accusation. You are dealing with several facts that appear to support one another.”
“They were arranged to support one another.”
“By Elena Ramirez?”
“Or Adrian.”
The attorney sat back.
Vanessa pressed her palms against the table. “He has been trying to end the engagement without losing face.”
“So he poisoned himself?”
“No. He created evidence that I did.”
“Why would he create an illness severe enough to damage his organs?”
“You think men like Adrian understand limits?”
“I think men like Adrian hire people to understand them.”
Winn watched her for a moment.
“Who gave you the cash?” he asked.
She blinked.
“That wasn’t the question.”
“It is now.”
She looked toward the doorway, where an officer crossed carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Winn lowered his voice. “The bands will identify the institution and date of withdrawal. If those bills came from somewhere connected to you, I need to know before the police do.”
“They came from Adrian’s safe.”
“Then we will prove that.”
Vanessa looked down at the ring-shaped indentation on her finger.
The police had taken the engagement ring as evidence because Lily had specifically identified the box. Without it, her hand looked smaller.
“Call Salvatore,” she said.
Winn’s face remained neutral. “Why?”
“He knows where the money came from.”
“Does Adrian?”
“No.”
“Then it is not Adrian’s cash.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Winn stood. “I asked for the truth.”
“You asked for a version you could defend.”
“I cannot defend what I do not know.”
She looked up at him. “You have defended worse.”
“Yes. But those clients lied more skillfully.”
He moved toward the door.
Vanessa’s voice stopped him.
“I was supposed to leave.”
Winn turned.
“The cash was for me,” she said.
“For what?”
“To leave Chicago.”
“From Adrian?”
She nodded.
“Who paid you?”
Vanessa stared at the rain.
Winn came back to the table and sat down slowly.
“Salvatore?”
She did not answer.
“Did he provide the bottles?”
Her breathing changed.
The attorney looked toward the officers moving through the hall.
“Vanessa, this is the point where silence stops being self-protection.”
She pressed both hands over her face. Her voice came through her fingers, muffled and furious.
“I was not trying to kill him.”
Winn did not respond.
She lowered her hands.
“I was trying to keep him weak.”
Elena and Lily spent the night in a furnished apartment owned by the city for protected witnesses and families displaced during active investigations. It was clean, anonymous, and smelled faintly of boiled cabbage from another floor.
A detective brought Lily’s backpack and Elena’s mother’s insulin supplies shortly after two in the morning. The stuffed rabbit was inside, its torn ear folded beneath its head.
Lily placed it on the sofa but did not touch it again.
Elena tried to make hot chocolate from packets she found in a cabinet. The water came out too thin. Lily drank half anyway.
“Are we poor now?” she asked.
“We were poor yesterday.”
“But yesterday we had our apartment.”
“We still have it.”
“In his house.”
Elena sat across from her at the small kitchen table. “We will find another place.”
“With what money?”
The question sounded like Elena.
She looked at the packet of powdered chocolate between her fingers. “I have savings.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“You say that when it isn’t enough.”
Elena almost smiled. “You have been listening too closely.”
“You taught me to.”
“I taught you to notice whether the stove was on and whether strangers followed you. I did not teach you to hide under pianos.”
“You didn’t teach me what to do when rich women poison people.”
“No. I missed that lesson.”
Lily looked into her cup.
The refrigerator turned on with a shudder.
After a while, she said, “Is he really my father?”
Elena’s chest tightened.
“Yes.”
“Does he know now?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him?”
“The detective did.”
“That was rude.”
“It was.”
“Is he mad?”
“Probably.”
“At me?”
“No.”
“At you?”
Elena considered lying.
“Yes.”
Lily nodded as though that made sense.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From him?”
“From his life.”
“But you brought me to his house.”
“I brought you to work because Mrs. Delgado canceled and your grandmother was sick. You were supposed to stay downstairs.”
“So you protected me badly.”
Elena looked at her daughter.
Lily’s eyes filled, though she refused to blink.
“Yes,” Elena said. “I did.”
That answer hurt them both, but it gave the room somewhere honest to stand.
Lily pushed the cup away. “Did he want me?”
“He didn’t know.”
“Before.”
Elena understood.
Eight years earlier, Adrian had wanted many things. He wanted Elena to move into an apartment he owned. He wanted her to quit working for his father. He wanted her to stop asking why men waited in cars outside restaurants where he ate. He wanted her to believe that being loved by him was the same as being safe.
He had not known she was pregnant when she left.
“I don’t know what he would have wanted,” she said.
“That means no.”
“It means I never gave him the chance to answer.”
Lily’s mouth trembled.
Elena reached across the table.
May you like
This time, Lily let her take her hand.
At six in the morning, the hospital laboratory confirmed that the tea contained traces of a nonprescribed compound capable of depressing heart rate and blood pressure. The amount in the cup was not large enough by itself to explain Adrian’s condition. The blood results suggested repeated exposure over several days, though specialists warned that full confirmation would require additional testing.
