Chapter 2 - The Thing in the Glass
The police arrived in seven minutes.
Lorenzo arrived in five.
Clara heard his car before she saw him.
Not because it was loud.
Because three black vehicles stopped outside almost simultaneously, doors opening before the engines died.
Lorenzo entered the apartment without waiting to be invited.
His jacket was gone.
His black shirt was open at the throat.
The tattoos Clara had noticed in the restaurant continued farther down than she had realized, disappearing beneath the fabric across his chest.
He looked around the room.
Broken glass.
Bullet hole.
Sarah sitting on the floor wrapped in a blanket.
Clara beside her.
His eyes hardened.
“Who knew she lived here?”
Gabriel answered.
“Restaurant employment records. Management. Payroll. Anyone who followed her.”
Lorenzo looked at Clara.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“She’s terrified.”
Sarah raised her head.
“I can answer for myself.”
Lorenzo paused.
Then, strangely, nodded.
“My apologies.”
Clara looked at him.
That was not the response she expected.
A police officer approached.
“Mr. Moretti, we need everyone outside the immediate area.”
Lorenzo did not move.
The officer recognized him.
His tone changed.
“Sir.”
“I’m staying.”
The officer hesitated.
Clara stood.
“No, you’re not.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“My apartment just got shot at. Police are here. You’re making everyone nervous.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“You’ve known me for approximately forty minutes.”
“Someone just fired through your window.”
“That doesn’t make you my landlord.”
Gabriel looked toward the floor.
Clara suspected he was hiding a smile.
Lorenzo wasn’t.
“You need protection.”
“I need an explanation.”
“You’ll get one.”
“When?”
“Now.”
He looked around the apartment.
“Not here.”
Sarah spoke quietly.
“Clara.”
She turned.
Her mother’s hands were shaking.
“Go.”
“What?”
“You’re going to stand here arguing until another bullet comes through the wall.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Lorenzo said, “She comes too.”
Clara gave him a sharp look.
“I wasn’t asking.”
“There’s a secure medical facility at my mother’s residence. Your mother will be safer there.”
Sarah frowned.
“Residence?”
Clara exhaled.
“It means mansion.”
Lorenzo corrected her.
“Estate.”
“Of course it does.”
Even Gabriel smiled this time.
Twenty minutes later, Clara sat inside Lorenzo’s armored SUV with her mother beside her.
Seattle blurred past the tinted windows.
Sarah leaned closer.
“Is he really Mafia?”
Clara whispered, “Please don’t ask him.”
From the opposite seat, Lorenzo said, “Yes.”
Sarah blinked.
Clara closed her eyes.
“Great.”
Lorenzo almost smiled.
Almost.
The Moretti estate sat above Lake Washington behind iron gates and old cedars.
It did not look like a gangster’s house.
It looked like a museum someone had decided to fortify.
Stone walls.
Warm windows.
Security cameras hidden beneath decorative eaves.
Men at every entrance.
An ambulance sat near the side wing.
“My mother came home?” Clara asked.
Lorenzo nodded.
“She refused the hospital.”
“That was stupid.”
Gabriel turned around.
Lorenzo’s eyebrows rose.
Clara shrugged.
“She had cardiac arrest.”
“She hates hospitals.”
“So do most people. They still use them when their hearts stop.”
Lorenzo studied her.
“You always talk like this?”
“Only when people make dangerous decisions.”
Sarah murmured, “She always talks like this.”
Inside, a physician met them.
Dr. Elias Warren.
Late fifties.
Silver glasses.
Expensive sweater.
Soft voice.
He shook Clara’s hand.
“I understand I owe you a patient.”
“She owes herself a cardiology workup.”
“We’re arranging one.”
“You should have kept her admitted.”
Dr. Warren’s smile tightened.
“I advised that.”
Lorenzo said, “My mother advised otherwise.”
Clara muttered, “Apparently stubbornness is hereditary.”
Sarah coughed to hide a laugh.
Lorenzo led Clara into a private sitting room.
Isabella lay propped against pillows.
She looked smaller than she had at the restaurant.
Not weak.
Smaller.
Mortality had taken some of the size from her.
When she saw Clara, she held out a hand.
“Come here.”
Clara approached.
Isabella took her fingers.
“You saved me.”
“I did what anyone with training should have done.”
“But they didn’t.”
Clara had no answer.
Isabella looked toward Lorenzo.
“And you threw money at her.”
Clara glanced at him.
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
“How do you know?”
“Gabriel told me.”
Gabriel, standing near the door, suddenly found the ceiling interesting.
Isabella slapped Lorenzo’s wrist.
Not hard.
Enough.
“I raised you better.”
“You raised me to repay debts.”
“She is not a parking attendant.”
Clara bit the inside of her cheek.
Lorenzo looked ready to fire half the room.
Isabella turned back.
“Please forgive my son. He has confused wealth with personality.”
“Mother.”
“I nearly died. I’m allowed honesty.”
Clara laughed.
She couldn’t help it.
Lorenzo stared at her.
Then at Isabella.
For one second the room felt almost normal.
That feeling died when Gabriel placed a sealed evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a broken wineglass.
Clara recognized it.
Table Seven.
Isabella’s.
“We recovered this after the ambulance left,” Gabriel said.
Clara leaned closer.
“What did the hospital find?”
Lorenzo answered.
“Something that should not have been there.”
“What?”
“Digitalis.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“Digoxin?”
Dr. Warren nodded.
“A cardiac glycoside.”
“Was she prescribed it?”
“No.”
Clara looked at Isabella.
“Any heart medication?”
“Blood pressure medication. Nothing like that.”
Dr. Warren folded his arms.
“Her bloodwork showed levels consistent with toxicity.”
Clara replayed the collapse.
Nausea?
Confusion?
Visual complaints?
She remembered something.
At the table, before Isabella collapsed, she had rubbed her temple.
“She asked if the chandelier looked green.”
Every person in the room turned.
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“What?”
“When I poured her water. I thought she was making conversation. She looked up and asked if the lights seemed green to me.”
Dr. Warren’s expression changed.
“Visual disturbance.”
Clara nodded.
“Could fit digoxin toxicity.”
Lorenzo stared at the evidence bag.
“Who poured the wine?”
Gabriel said, “Sommelier opened the bottle.”
“Who brought it?”
“Waiter.”
“Who touched the glass?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Several people.”
Clara studied the fragments.
One detail scratched at her memory.
The water glass.
The wine.
Isabella had reached for one but collapsed after drinking from another.
“Wait.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“The wine wasn’t the last thing she drank.”
“What was?”
“Water.”
Silence.
Clara saw the scene again.
Her own hand pouring.
Isabella smiling.
Then—
No.
Before Clara arrived.
“There was already water in the glass.”
Gabriel’s face sharpened.
“You topped it off.”
“Yes.”
“So someone could have dosed the water before you arrived.”
Lorenzo’s attention became frighteningly still.
“Who set the table?”
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
“Restaurant staff.”
“Get names.”
“I already did.”
Lorenzo took the phone.
Seven names.
Clara glanced down.
Marcus Henderson was one.
Of course.
She almost laughed.
Then she noticed another.
Daniel Moretti.
She looked at Lorenzo.
“Who’s Daniel?”
The room changed.
Isabella’s hand tightened around Clara’s.
Lorenzo stopped moving.
Gabriel answered.
“Mr. Moretti’s cousin.”
Clara looked back at the list.
“Why was he setting a table?”
“He wasn’t.”
“Then why is his name here?”
Gabriel’s mouth flattened.
“Because security footage shows him entering the private dining room seventeen minutes before Mrs. Moretti arrived.”
Isabella whispered, “Daniel?”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“He had access.”
Clara looked at him.
“You think your cousin tried to kill your mother?”
“I think anyone with access is a suspect.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Lorenzo stepped toward her.
“No. It’s how people stay alive.”
Clara met his stare.
“And how many innocent people get crushed while you decide?”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
Before he could respond, Sarah called from the hallway.
“Clara?”
She sounded wrong.
Clara spun.
Her mother was gripping the wall.
Pale.
Dizzy.
Clara caught her.
“Mom.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
She checked her pulse.
Fast.
Too fast.
Dr. Warren came over.
“I’ll examine her.”
Clara helped Sarah into a chair.
Then noticed something on the floor near the doorway.
A small amber bottle.
No label.
She picked it up with a tissue.
“What is this?”
Nobody answered.
Gabriel approached.
The cap had been removed.
Lorenzo looked toward the hall.
“Who came through here?”
A guard answered from the doorway.
“Only staff.”
Clara sniffed carefully near the opening without touching it.
Bitter.
Medicinal.
Dr. Warren went pale.
“Don’t handle that.”
“Why?”
He stared at the bottle.
“Because that smell…”
“What?”
Dr. Warren looked at Lorenzo.
“It resembles concentrated digitalis preparation.”
Clara’s blood went cold.
Someone had brought the poison inside the Moretti estate.
Not hours ago.
Minutes ago.
And the bottle had been dropped beside her mother.
Lorenzo’s voice became quiet.
“Lock the gates.”
Every guard moved.
Clara looked toward the dark windows.
The estate suddenly felt less like a fortress.
More like a cage.
May you like
And somewhere inside it, the person who had tried to kill Isabella Moretti might still be walking the halls.
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