Chương 2
Victor’s hand stopped.
Alejandro’s gaze shifted from him to the camera, then back.
“Leave it.”
The estate’s medical team arrived within two minutes, followed by paramedics from the town station. The study filled with equipment cases, oxygen tubing, clipped commands, and the squeak of rubber soles on marble. Elena carried Emma into the hallway, though Emma was too old and heavy to be carried comfortably. She wrapped both arms around her mother’s neck and looked over Elena’s shoulder.
A paramedic cut through one leg of Alejandro’s trousers.
Another injection followed.
Oxygen covered his face.
Dominic stood in the doorway with red wine on one knee and Emma’s small fingernail marks on his wrist. He looked at Elena as though he wanted to say something, but the words did not come.
Victor finally stepped away from the bookshelf when a police officer entered and asked who had been in the room.
The question changed the air.
Employees who had gathered in the corridor began looking at one another. The estate manager, Lillian Price, arrived with her phone in one hand and a strained expression that made her mouth almost disappear.
“No one leaves the property,” the officer said.
Lillian nodded too quickly. “Of course.”
Elena lowered Emma to the floor.
“Where were you before you came here?” the officer asked her.
“In the east hall. I was returning the cellar keys.”
“Why was your daughter with you?”
“Her preschool closed early. A water pipe broke. I had permission to keep her in the laundry room until my shift ended.”
“Whose permission?”
“Mrs. Price’s.”
Lillian’s eyes shifted toward the ambulance crew rolling Alejandro through the corridor. “I said she could remain downstairs. I did not give permission for her to wander through private rooms.”
Emma pressed her face against Elena’s skirt.
“She wasn’t wandering,” Elena said. “I sent her to find me after the kitchen supervisor needed the key ring. I was thirty feet away.”
Lillian folded her arms. “We can discuss procedure later.”
One of the officers held up an evidence bag containing the neck of the broken wineglass. “Who served this?”
Nobody answered.
In the study, the hidden camera’s red light continued to glow.
Alejandro Moretti was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital under armed escort. Three black SUVs followed the ambulance. By the time the gates closed behind them, reporters had begun calling the estate office, though no official statement had been made.
Information moved differently around powerful men. It did not need facts. It needed a frightened person with a phone.
Elena and Emma were taken to a breakfast room at the rear of the house. A detective named Nia Brooks sat across from them at a table polished so thoroughly that Emma could see the underside of her own chin in it.
Detective Brooks removed her coat and placed a small recorder between the silver sugar bowl and an untouched plate of pastries.
“Emma, do you know why I want to talk to you?”
Emma sat on Elena’s lap. Her light shoes did not reach the floor.
“Because Mr. Moretti got sick.”
“That’s right. I’m going to ask what you saw. It’s okay to say you don’t know. It’s okay to say you forgot.”
Elena held Emma more tightly. “She’s four.”
“I understand.”
“She’s tired.”
“I understand that too.”
Emma looked at the recorder.
“Is it a camera?”
“No. It listens.”
“Like Victor’s?”
The room went still.
Detective Brooks kept her voice even. “What do you mean?”
“The little red one.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Where did you see a little red camera?”
“In the books.”
“Before or after Mr. Moretti fell?”
“After. Victor saw it and got white.”
From the far side of the room, Lillian shifted her weight.
Detective Brooks glanced at the uniformed officer near the door. “Please ask the crime-scene team not to move anything near the west shelves until I get there.”
The officer left.
Emma watched him go. “Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“My mama can’t lose her job.”
Elena’s hand moved over Emma’s bow.
Detective Brooks leaned forward. “Why do you think she might?”
“Dominic said.”
Elena turned her head slowly toward the closed door.
“What exactly did Dominic say?” the detective asked.
Emma pressed her lips together. Her chin trembled once.
“He said if I touched Mr. Moretti, Mama loses her job.”
A silence followed. It was not the empty silence of people who did not know what to say. It was the crowded silence of several adults understanding the cost of a sentence spoken in panic.
Lillian recovered first. “Mr. Velez was attempting to protect a critically ill employer from an untrained child.”
“She had the appropriate medication,” Detective Brooks said.
“She is four.”
“She also appears to be the reason he remained alive long enough for paramedics to arrive.”
Elena looked at the detective. “Is he alive?”
“For now.”
Emma leaned back against her mother’s chest.
Elena lowered her mouth to the top of her head. Her lips moved without sound.
Detective Brooks asked Emma to describe the minutes before she entered the study. Emma had been sent from the kitchen with Elena’s keys. She had walked past the indoor palm and the tall window with the blue curtains. She had seen a man at the far end of the hall.
“What man?”
Emma shrugged.
“Did you know him?”
“I see him sometimes.”
“What was he wearing?”
“A coat.”
“What color?”
“Dark.”
Elena whispered, “There are twenty men in dark coats here.”
Detective Brooks nodded. “Did he speak to you?”
Emma shook her head.
“Did you see his face?”
“Not all of it.”
“What did you see?”
Emma thought for a long time. Her eyes drifted toward the plate of pastries.
“His hand was shiny.”
“Shiny how?”
“Like church.”
Elena frowned.
Detective Brooks did not push. “Anything else?”
“He was mad at his sleeve.”
“What does that mean?”
“He kept rubbing it.”
“Which sleeve?”
May you like
Emma raised her left hand.
By late afternoon, the police had collected the shattered glass, the wine bottle, residue from the marble, fingerprints from the desk, security access logs, and the hidden camera. They had also found an empty compartment in the upper-right desk drawer.
