Chapter 3 - THE EPI-PENS FILLED WITH WATER
Dominic did not allow Lily and me back into the staff wing.
Not that night.
Not the next morning.
Not after security discovered my bedroom window open and Lily’s favorite pink rabbit lying on the floor beneath it.
The rabbit had been on her bed when we left for the party.
Someone had moved it.
Someone wanted us to know they had been there.
Dominic gave us two rooms in the private family wing.
I protested.
He ignored me.
“Mr. Moretti—”
“No.”
“This is your home.”
“Exactly.”
He stood in the hallway while Matteo checked every room.
“You and Lily stay where I can protect you.”
I looked at the armed guards stationed near the staircase.
“Someone got past your protection yesterday.”
The words came out harsher than I intended.
Dominic’s expression changed.
“I’m aware.”
I regretted it immediately.
“Sir—”
“No.”
His voice lowered.
“You’re right.”
That surprised me.
Powerful men rarely liked truth when it arrived without permission.
Dominic looked through the open bedroom door at Lily sleeping beside Ethan.
The children had refused to separate.
Ethan had dragged half his pillows into the guest room, and Lily had insisted her pink rabbit needed “doctor sleep” too.
“They were supposed to be safe here,” Dominic said.
“I built everything around that assumption.”
There was something almost broken in his voice.
Then Matteo appeared.
“We found something else.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
Matteo looked toward the children.
“Not here.”
We went to the security room.
Dr. Harris waited beside a stainless-steel tray.
On it sat six EpiPens.
I knew them.
One from the ballroom.
Two from Ethan’s bedroom.
One from the kitchen.
One from Dominic’s car.
One from the school emergency bag stored at the estate.
Dr. Harris picked up the first.
“This should contain epinephrine.”
He pressed it into a test container.
Clear liquid appeared.
“Saline.”
My stomach dropped.
He tested another.
Saline.
Another.
Saline.
All six.
Dominic’s face went terrifyingly still.
“So even if he ate the cake…”
Dr. Harris nodded.
“The emergency medication would not have worked.”
I gripped the table.
This hadn’t been a single assassination attempt.
It had been layered.
Poison the cake.
Disable the cameras.
Replace Ethan’s medicine.
Make his death look like an accidental allergic exposure.
The kind of tragedy everyone would blame on a kitchen mistake.
Maybe even me.
Matteo said, “We found one working injector.”
“Where?” Dominic asked.
“Elena’s housekeeping emergency kit.”
Everybody looked at me.
I blinked.
“I keep one because Ethan spends time in the staff areas.”
Dominic knew.
I had told him four years earlier after finding Ethan stealing cookies in my pantry.
I kept an emergency injector because I was terrified he would eat something without checking.
Dr. Harris held it up.
“This one is real.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Which means whoever replaced the others either didn’t know about Elena’s kit or couldn’t access it.”
Matteo nodded.
“And if Ethan had collapsed in the ballroom, everyone would have gone for the ballroom injector.”
Not mine.
The plan had been nearly perfect.
Except for Lily.
A three-year-old child hiding behind a service cart because she had stolen strawberries.
Matteo placed a printed access log on the table.
“EpiPen cabinet access occurred over six days.”
“Who?” Dominic asked.
“Different names.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not if someone cloned staff cards.”
He looked at me.
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Your card was used Monday at 2:13 a.m.”
“I was home.”
“In the staff wing?”
“Yes.”
“Asleep?”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked at Matteo.
“Who else?”
“Chef Paolo. Houseman Thomas. Dr. Harris. Two guards.”
Dr. Harris frowned.
“I was in Boston Monday.”
“Exactly.”
Someone was creating a trail.
A trail involving innocent employees.
Maybe designed so Dominic wouldn’t know who to trust.
Then Matteo said, “There is one card we cannot explain.”
He placed another line in front of Dominic.
S. MORETTI FAMILY OVERRIDE.
Salvatore again.
Dominic stared.
“Find him.”
“We are trying.”
“Try harder.”
Matteo left.
I remained.
“Sir.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Salvatore may be guilty.”
“May?”
“The silver box was in his car.”
“Yes.”
“The override is his.”
“Yes.”
“Lily described his ring and cologne.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“What are you saying?”
“It’s too easy.”
Silence.
I had spent years watching Moretti family dinners from the edges of rooms.
Nothing about these people was ever easy.
“If someone wanted Ethan dead and wanted you to suspect Salvatore, they would use things connected to him.”
Dominic studied me.
“Why frame my uncle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why defend him?”
“I’m not.”
I met his stare.
“I’m telling you not to kill the wrong person because someone made the evidence convenient.”
For several seconds, the most feared man I had ever known said nothing.
Then something almost like respect appeared in his eyes.
“Ethan likes you.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You tell me things nobody else does.”
“That’s not always a good quality in an employee.”
“No.”
His gaze stayed on mine.
“It might be why you’ve lasted six years.”
Before I could answer, a tiny voice came from the doorway.
“Mommy.”
Lily stood holding Ethan’s hand.
My heart nearly stopped.
“You’re supposed to be upstairs.”
“Ethan wanted juice.”
Ethan looked offended.
“She wanted juice.”
“I wanted apple.”
Dominic sighed.
Children somehow turned murder investigations into arguments about juice.
Then Lily noticed the EpiPens.
She pointed.
“That man had one.”
Every adult froze.
Dominic crouched.
“What?”
“The cake man.”
“He had an EpiPen?”
She nodded.
“In his pocket.”
“Are you sure?”
“It had a blue top.”
Dr. Harris and I looked at each other.
Ethan’s injectors had blue safety caps.
Dominic said, “Lily, did you see anything else?”
She thought very hard.
“He talked to somebody.”
“Who?”
“A lady.”
My pulse changed.
“What lady?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she look like?”
Lily squeezed Ethan’s hand.
“Pretty.”
Not helpful.
“Hair?” I asked.
“Yellow.”
Blonde.
“Dress?”
“Sparkly.”
Half the ballroom had sparkled.
Dominic asked, “Did she say anything?”
Lily nodded.
“She said, ‘After tonight, he gets everything.’”
The room went silent.
Dominic’s face changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
He stood.
“Matteo.”
The security chief turned.
“Get me Ethan’s trust.”
I frowned.
“Trust?”
Dominic looked at me.
“My father left thirty percent of Moretti International to Ethan.”
“Why?”
“Because Ethan was his first grandchild.”
“And if something happens to Ethan?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“The shares do not come to me.”
“Then who?”
He looked toward the doorway.
A voice answered before he could.
“Me.”
We all turned.
Salvatore Moretti stood at the far end of the security room.
Alive.
Wet from the rain.
And holding both hands where everyone could see them.
“I heard you were looking for me.”
Dominic’s gun was in his hand before I saw him draw it.
Salvatore stopped.
“I didn’t poison the boy.”
Dominic’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Then explain why your box contained enough cashew protein to kill him.”
Salvatore’s face went blank.
“My box?”
Dominic’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“And before you lie to me, Uncle…”
He stepped closer.
“My son almost died.”
Salvatore looked at Ethan.
Then Lily.
Then me.
Finally, he said something nobody expected.
“My silver box disappeared three weeks ago.”
Dominic did not lower the gun.
Salvatore continued.
“And if somebody used my override code, we have a bigger problem.”
“What problem?”
“My override hasn’t worked in this house for eight months.”
Matteo went still.
Dominic slowly turned toward him.
“What?”
Salvatore’s eyes followed.
“That code was deactivated after I lost my security key.”
No one moved.
Then Dominic looked at Matteo.
“Who reactivated it?”
The head of security’s face hardened.
“I don’t know.”
Salvatore gave a grim smile.
“Then perhaps you should ask the man who controls the security system.”
May you like
Every eye in the room turned toward Matteo.
And for the first time since I had known him, Dominic Moretti looked at his most trusted man as if he might be the enemy.
