Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN EVERYONE TRUSTED“She makes me nervous,” Clara whispered one evening in the kitchen.
Dante had entered for coffee and found her standing beside the sink, eyes glistening.
“Who?”
“Miss Cross.”
“Why?”
Clara hesitated just long enough to make the hesitation seem reluctant rather than practiced.
“I shouldn’t say anything.”
Dante poured coffee into a black ceramic cup.
“Then don’t.”
Clara lowered her gaze.
“I saw her in Leo’s room last night.”
Dante stopped pouring.
“At what time?”
“After two.”
“What was she doing?”
“She was standing over his crib.”
Clara hugged herself.
“She wasn’t touching him. She wasn’t doing anything I could report. She was just… watching.”
Dante set the coffee pot down.
“Watching a baby sleep is not a crime.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Clara swallowed.
“Because when she realized I was behind her, she asked whether Leo ever had trouble breathing.”
Dante’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Clara noticed.
“She asked exactly that?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That he’d had croup once. Nothing serious. Then she asked where his emergency medication was kept.”
Dante stared at her.
Clara wiped one eye.
“Maybe she was only curious. She was a doctor. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Dante said nothing for several seconds.
Then he lifted his coffee.
“You did the right thing.”
Clara exhaled.
Relief moved across her face so perfectly it might have convinced anyone else.
What Dante did not know was that, forty minutes earlier, Vivienne had already spoken to Sal.
And she had told him something very different.
“There’s something wrong with the baby’s room,” Vivienne said.
Sal looked up from the financial records spread across Dante’s study.
“What kind of wrong?”
“The humidifier was cleaned with bleach.”
Sal frowned.
“So?”
“So the reservoir still smells of it.”
Vivienne folded her arms.
“If someone mixed another cleaning agent into it, the vapor could irritate Leo’s airway.”
“You think Clara did that?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking someone in this house is careless. Or deliberate.”
Sal watched her carefully.
“You haven’t told Dante.”
“He already suspects everything I say is designed by my father.”
“That hasn’t stopped you before.”
“No. But accusing the woman who practically raised his nephew is different.”
Vivienne glanced toward the closed study doors.
“I need evidence first.”
She found it two days later.
A bottle of infant antihistamine had been moved from the locked medicine cabinet.
Vivienne noticed because the plastic safety seal was damaged.
She carried it to Dante’s office.
He was speaking with two men from the port division.
“Out,” he said when he saw her face.
The men left.
Vivienne placed the bottle on his desk.
“Has Leo been given this recently?”
Dante picked it up.
“I don’t know.”
“You should.”
His eyes hardened.
“That sounded like criticism.”
“It was.”
Dante leaned back.
“You’re becoming comfortable.”
“No. I’m becoming concerned.”
She pointed at the bottle.
“The seal was opened incorrectly. Someone punctured it instead of twisting it off.”
“And?”
“And there is sediment in the liquid.”
Dante examined it.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Hold it against the lamp.”
He did.
A faint cloud gathered near the bottom.
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want it tested.”
“By whom?”
“Someone your enemies can’t buy.”
Dante looked at her.
“You assume everyone can be bought.”
“I was raised by Everett Cross.”
That answer ended the argument.
Dante called Sal.
The bottle disappeared into the hands of a private laboratory technician before midnight.
The results came the following afternoon.
The antihistamine contained traces of a muscle relaxant.
A dose too small to kill an adult.
More than enough to suppress a six-month-old child’s breathing.
Dante read the report twice.
Then he walked into the nursery.
Clara was changing Leo.
The baby kicked happily, grabbing at the silver necklace around Clara’s neck.
She laughed.
“You little thief.”
Dante stood in the doorway.
Clara looked over.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Has Leo been sick?”
“Not recently.”
“Have you given him medicine?”
“No.”
“Has anyone?”
Her smile disappeared.
“Not that I know of.”
Dante stepped inside.
“Think carefully.”
Clara looked frightened.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“No.”
He studied her face.
Her pulse was visible at her throat.
Then Leo reached for him.
Dante crossed the room and lifted his nephew.
The baby immediately grabbed his tie.
Dante let him.
“Who has access to his medicine cabinet?”
“Me. Mrs. Ortega. Sometimes Dr. Wells.”
“Vivienne?”
Clara hesitated.
“She knows where it is.”
That was not an answer.
Dante noticed.
“Does she have access?”
“Yes.”
Clara whispered the word.
Then she said, “She asked about his breathing.”
The seed had already been planted.
Now she pressed it into the soil.
That night, Dante ordered the nursery hallway cameras reviewed.
There was a problem.
The footage from 1:47 a.m. to 3:18 a.m. had been erased.
Only four people had administrative access to the estate security system.
Dante.
Sal.
Head of security Vincent Rallo.
And Marco.
His dead brother.
Dante stood in the security room staring at the missing timeline.
“Who used Marco’s credentials?” he asked.
Vincent shook his head.
“They shouldn’t work anymore.”
“Yet they did.”
“I’ll trace the login.”
“You’ll trace everything.”
Vivienne stood behind Dante.
She had been silent since entering.
Then she pointed to a smaller screen.
“What is that?”
Vincent followed her gaze.
An exterior camera showed a delivery van leaving the service entrance at 2:03 a.m.
“That company doesn’t service us,” Vivienne said.
Vincent zoomed in.
The logo read NORTHSTAR LINEN SERVICES.
Sal frowned.
“We use Bellamy.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“Track the plate.”
Vincent began typing.
The license plate returned to a vehicle reported stolen six months earlier.
On the morning Marco died.
Silence filled the room.
Dante stared at the screen.
Six months.
The same day his brother’s car exploded.
Vivienne said quietly, “Your brother’s death and what’s happening to Leo may be connected.”
Dante turned toward her.
For the first time since their engagement, he did not look at her like the daughter of his enemy.
He looked at her like the only person in the room willing to say what everyone else feared.
“Then someone inside this house helped kill Marco.”
“Yes.”
“And now they want his son.”
“Yes.”
Behind them, Vincent’s computer chimed.
“I found something.”
They moved closer.
“The erased camera section wasn’t deleted locally,” Vincent said. “Someone accessed the system remotely.”
“From where?”
Vincent stared at the screen.
“You’re not going to like this.”
Dante’s voice went cold.
“Say it.”
“The authorization token came from Everett Cross’s network.”
Vivienne went still.
Dante looked at her.
There it was.
The suspicion Clara had been feeding.
The alliance.
Vivienne’s father.
Leo.
Dante’s hand slowly moved toward the pistol beneath his jacket.
Vivienne saw it.
“If my father wanted your nephew dead,” she said, “he would not use a traceable authorization token from his own network.”
“Maybe he wants me to know.”
“Or someone wants you to think he does.”
Dante stepped closer.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Vivienne’s gray eyes held his.
“I expect you to investigate before you execute me.”
Before Dante could answer, a scream tore through the corridor.
They ran.
A guard was lying outside Leo’s nursery.
Unconscious.
Clara stood inside holding the baby.
She was sobbing.
“He stopped breathing!”
Vivienne reached for Leo.
Clara pulled away.
“No!”
“Give him to me.”
“He was fine until you came here!”
“Clara.”
Vivienne’s tone changed.
Command replaced restraint.
“Give me the baby.”
Leo’s lips were turning blue.
Dante took one look and shouted, “Do it!”
Clara surrendered him.
Vivienne laid him on the changing table.
She checked his airway.
His chest barely moved.
“He’s obstructed.”
“With what?” Dante demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Vivienne tilted his head.
Nothing.
She reached for a medical bag she had started keeping near the nursery.
Clara backed toward the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to save him.”
Vivienne opened the bag.
Her fingers moved quickly.
A small scalpel flashed beneath the nursery light.
Clara screamed.
“She’s killing him!”
Dante entered with his pistol drawn.
The next seconds unfolded exactly as terror would later replay them in his dreams.
Vivienne’s blood-covered dress.
The blade at Leo’s throat.
Clara pleading.
Dante counting.
Three.
Two.
One.
The gunshot shattered the window.
But he had not fired at Vivienne.
At the final instant, he had moved his aim.
The bullet struck the wall beside Clara’s head.
She collapsed screaming.
Vivienne made the tiny emergency incision.
Air entered Leo’s lungs.
A fragile cry filled the room.
Dante dropped beside him.
Leo lived.
Vivienne’s hands trembled after it was over.
Only then.
Not during the cut.
Not when the gun was aimed at her.
Only after.
Dante saw the tremor.
“You saved him.”
She looked exhausted.
“He still needs a hospital.”
Dante glanced at Clara.
She was staring at Leo.
Her expression was wrong.
Not relief.
Not gratitude.
Horror.
Vincent noticed it too.
Dante stood.
“Clara.”
Her gaze snapped toward him.
“Yes?”
“What did you give him?”
Her face emptied.
“Nothing.”
Vivienne looked down at Leo’s throat.
Then at his mouth.
She picked something tiny from between his gums with a pair of forceps.
A translucent strip.
Almost invisible.
Plastic film.
She held it up.
“This was covering his airway.”
Clara stumbled backward.
“I don’t know how that got there.”
Dante’s expression became terrifyingly calm.
“You said he stopped breathing while you were holding him.”
“I—”
“You were alone with him.”
“No.”
Clara’s eyes widened.
“No, Miss Cross was here.”
Vivienne turned.
“I entered after you screamed.”
Clara began shaking her head.
“You’re lying.”
Dante looked toward the guard outside.
“Vincent.”
Vincent crouched beside the unconscious man.
“No gunshot wound. Looks like he was injected.”
Vivienne searched his collar.
“There.”
A puncture mark.
Dante turned back toward Clara.
The gentle nanny everyone trusted was now pressed against the nursery wall.
Her hand slowly moved behind her back.
Vivienne saw it first.
“Dante!”
Clara pulled a small pistol from beneath her uniform.
She did not aim at Dante.
She aimed at Leo.
Dante fired.
The bullet struck Clara’s shoulder.
She spun into the wall, dropping the weapon.
Vincent rushed forward and pinned her.
Clara screamed.
“You don’t understand!”
Dante crossed the room.
He crouched in front of her.
“Then explain.”
Tears streamed down her face.
“You think this is about the baby?”
Dante said nothing.
Clara laughed through the pain.
A broken, bitter sound.
“Leo was never the target.”
Her eyes moved toward Vivienne.
“He was the key.”
Dante’s blood went cold.
“The key to what?”
May you like
Clara smiled.
“To proving Marco Moretti is still alive.”
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