Chương 3
Rowan pictured the room: Marisol in a white chef’s coat, two assistants carrying sugar roses, Diane checking her tablet, a florist arguing about table placement, Owen standing near the door.
“Yes,” she said. “Several people.”
“Names.”
She gave them.
At five forty, Rowan had been sent to retrieve a box of replacement place cards from the west service pantry. The corridor there ran behind the ballroom wall. Burgundy velvet curtains concealed two narrow openings used by servers.
As she approached the cake alcove from behind, she heard a scrape.
“What kind of scrape?”
“Metal against stone. Heavy.”
“The cake stand?”
“I think so.”
“You didn’t see it move?”
“No. I heard it.”
A man stepped through the velvet curtain ahead of her. Rowan saw only his back and left side. He wore black formal trousers and a white shirt. His dinner jacket was folded over one arm. He was taller than Rowan but not as tall as Nolan.
“Hair?”
“I don’t know. I was looking at his hands.”
“Why?”
“One hand was covered with an ivory napkin. Or a cloth. He was holding it like he’d cut himself.”
“Did you see blood?”
“No.”
“Anything in the hand?”
“No.”
“Jewelry? Watch? Ring?”
Rowan closed her eyes, not to dramatize the memory but to keep the library from replacing it.
A pale cuff. A dark square at the wrist. A glint.
“A cuff link,” she said. “Dark. Maybe black stone. I’m not sure.”
“Which wrist?”
“Left.”
“Anything else?”
“He smelled like something.”
Detective Voss waited.
“Sandalwood,” Rowan said. “Or expensive soap. I know that sounds useless.”
“Nothing is useless yet.”
The man had turned toward the north stairwell before Rowan saw his face. She considered following him, but Diane called through her earpiece, asking about the place cards. Rowan entered the alcove instead.
The cake appeared intact.
She walked around it once. At the back of the lowest tier, one pearl of piping had been flattened. Near the decorative front panel, she saw a mark no larger than a pinhole.
“Why didn’t you report it then?” Voss asked.
“I did.”
“To whom?”
“Owen.”
The detective’s pen stopped.
“What did he say?”
“He said the bakery probably made it during assembly. He told me not to touch anything and to return to work.”
“Did he inspect it?”
“He looked from the curtain. He didn’t go close.”
“Did you tell anyone else?”
“Marisol. About ten minutes later.”
“And?”
“She said none of her people had made a puncture there.”
“Did she inspect it?”
“She tried. Diane stopped her because guests were entering the ballroom and said no vendors could be visible.”
Rowan’s voice tightened despite her effort to keep it level.
“Marisol told me to make sure Nolan didn’t eat from the lower tier until she could check it. I tried to find Diane. She was with the officiant. Then the cake-cutting announcement started early.”
“How early?”
“About nine minutes.”
“Who changed the schedule?”
Rowan stared at the recorder.
“I don’t know.”
Detective Voss leaned back.
“What did you do?”
“I went to the ballroom. Diane told me to stay out of sight. I tried to get Nolan’s attention from the service entrance, but the photographer moved in front of me. Then he lifted the knife.”
“And you shouted.”
“Yes.”
“What made you tear the panel open?”
“Nobody was listening.”
“Miss Hale, that isn’t what I asked.”
Rowan looked at her.
Voss’s face was not unkind, but it had the steadiness of someone who would not rescue Rowan from her own imprecision.
“I thought someone had put something into the cake,” Rowan said. “If security removed me, they might remove it too.”
“Who is they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you have the syringe before you entered the ballroom?”
“No.”
“Have you ever handled a syringe like that?”
“No.”
“Do you use injectable medication?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Any medical training?”
Rowan hesitated.
“Two years of nursing school.”
“Why only two?”
“I left.”
“Why?”
“My mother got sick.”
“What kind of illness?”
Rowan looked toward the lilies.
“Kidney failure. She needed help at home.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Does she use syringes?”
“No. Her treatments are managed at a clinic.”
Voss wrote that down.
Rowan almost asked why her mother mattered. She understood before the question left her mouth. Everything mattered until it did not.
Detective Voss asked about Rowan’s finances, her relationship status, whether she knew Nolan or Vivienne before the wedding, and whether anyone had offered her money to disrupt the reception. Rowan answered until her throat hurt.
At last Voss turned off the recorder.
“You did the right thing by stopping him from cutting the cake.”
Relief came so quickly Rowan hated herself for needing it.
Then Voss continued.
“That doesn’t mean we know who put the syringe there.”
The library door opened after ten that night.
Nolan entered without his jacket. His vest remained buttoned, but his bow tie was gone and one shirt cuff had come loose. The controlled composure he had carried through the ballroom had thinned. He looked tired rather than frightened.
Detective Voss stood.
“I asked to speak to her,” he said.
“You get five minutes.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
Nolan accepted that with a nod and sat in the chair opposite Rowan.
For a moment neither spoke.
He looked at the buttercream drying on her fingers.
“They took the cake,” he said.
“I saw.”
“And the syringe.”
She nodded.
“They’re sending both to a lab.”
“I know.”
He rubbed the side of his watch again. “Did you see who did it?”
“No.”
“Did you recognize anything about him?”
“I told Detective Voss everything.”
“I’m not asking you to change your statement.”
His tone remained quiet, but she heard the effort beneath it.
“Then why are you asking?”
“Because my wife said you may have staged it.”
The word wife made Rowan glance up. She had not considered whether the marriage was already legal.
May you like
Nolan noticed.
“We signed the certificate after the ceremony,” he said. “It hasn’t been filed.”
