Chapter 3 - TWO HUNDRED WITNESSES
The photograph changed the room.
Until that moment, Adeline had been an injured maid with a secret.
Now she was also someone who had been watched before she ever entered the Marchetti estate.
Enzo pressed the intercom again.
“Bring the phone, the glass, and the photograph to my study.”
“Already on the way.”
“Do not touch the glass without gloves.”
“Understood.”
Enzo released the button.
Adeline remained beside the desk.
“Who took the picture?”
“We are going to find out.”
“What if it was your people?”
Enzo's gaze settled on her.
“If it was my people, I will tell you.”
“That is easy to say now.”
“You came into my house under false pretenses.”
“And you belong to a family that accused my father of theft before he disappeared.”
The words hung between them.
Neither apologized.
A knock sounded.
Enzo opened the door himself.
Matteo entered carrying an evidence bag containing a champagne flute and another bag with a black smartphone.
A third bag held a glossy photograph.
Adeline recognized her own coat immediately.
The picture showed her crossing a street near the Marchetti estate three days before she had applied for work.
Someone had taken it from inside a parked vehicle.
The angle was low and partially obscured by a side mirror.
On the back, written in blue ink, were three words.
THOMAS CROFT'S DAUGHTER.
Adeline stared at the handwriting.
“Do you recognize it?” Enzo asked.
“No.”
Matteo placed the bags on the desk.
“The systems manager's name is Leo Benton.”
“Any sign of him?”
“None.”
“Family?”
“Wife and teenage son in Evanston.”
“Get someone there quietly.”
Matteo nodded.
Enzo pointed at the phone.
“Locked?”
“Not anymore.”
Adeline looked up.
“That was fast.”
Matteo's face remained neutral.
“We are good at certain things.”
The answer reminded her exactly whose house she was standing in.
Enzo picked up the phone using a clean handkerchief.
The most recent outgoing call had been placed at 8:41 p.m.
That was fourteen minutes before Camilla's first strike.
The contact had no name.
Only a number.
“Call it from a separate line,” Enzo said.
Matteo took out his own phone.
“No.”
Enzo stopped him.
“Not yours.”
Matteo nodded once.
The correction was small.
Adeline noticed it anyway.
For the first time, she wondered whether Enzo trusted his own security chief completely.
Matteo left.
Enzo looked through Leo Benton's messages.
Most were ordinary.
A grocery list from his wife.
A reminder about his son's dentist appointment.
A complaint about parking from one of the night guards.
Then Enzo found a deleted message that had been restored by whoever unlocked the device.
The message contained no text.
Only a photograph.
It showed the west pantry.
The missing glass sat alone on the counter.
The timestamp was 8:47 p.m.
Eight minutes before the attack began.
Adeline leaned closer.
“Someone wanted proof that it was there.”
“Or proof that it could be removed.”
Enzo enlarged the image.
A reflection appeared in the stainless-steel cabinet behind the glass.
It was distorted.
But a figure was visible.
A dark suit.
A pale hand.
A ring.
Adeline pointed.
“Can you make that clearer?”
“Not here.”
The study door opened.
Antonio Marchetti entered without waiting to be invited.
His face was drawn with anger.
“You locked a ballroom full of Chicago's most self-important people inside your house.”
“I gave them the option to leave.”
“You gave them the option to become your enemies.”
“That is different.”
Antonio's eyes moved to Adeline.
He saw the coat.
Then the bandage.
His anger shifted direction.
“What happened to your arm?”
“Camilla.”
Antonio's jaw tightened.
“I saw the end of it.”
He looked at Enzo.
“You did the right thing.”
Enzo seemed almost surprised.
Antonio glanced at the champagne glass.
“Is that the one?”
“We believe so.”
“Then test it.”
“We will.”
Antonio frowned.
“Not at St. Augustine.”
Enzo looked at him.
“Why?”
Antonio lowered his voice.
“Because Malcolm Voss has spent the last twenty minutes insisting I take my heart medication in front of him.”
Adeline's attention sharpened.
“Is that unusual?”
“Very.”
Antonio reached into his pocket and removed a small silver pill case.
“I normally take it at ten.”
“What did he say?” Enzo asked.
“That I looked pale and should take it early.”
Enzo stared at the case.
“Did he touch it?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
Antonio thought.
“Camilla did earlier.”
Adeline's stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Before dinner.”
“She asked if it was an antique.”
Enzo took the pill case.
“We test this too.”
Antonio studied Adeline.
“You said you saw Camilla put something into my drink?”
“Yes.”
“And you stopped me from taking it?”
“I stopped the glass from reaching you.”
Antonio nodded slowly.
“Then you may have saved my life.”
Camilla's voice suddenly came from the doorway.
“Or she may have staged all of this.”
Everyone turned.
Camilla stood beside Victor and Judge Eleanor Price.
Two of Enzo's guards waited behind them, clearly uncomfortable about how the trio had reached the study.
Enzo's expression hardened.
“No one invited you.”
Victor stepped inside anyway.
“You have turned a family disagreement into an accusation of attempted murder.”
“No one used that phrase.”
“You did not have to.”
Judge Price raised one hand.
“I am not here as a judge.”
Enzo looked at her.
“Then why are you here?”
“As someone who has known both families for twenty years.”
“That makes you a guest.”
“Yes.”
“And a witness.”
Her face tightened.
Victor smiled faintly.
“You see enemies everywhere, Enzo.”
“Only when they walk into my study without permission.”
Camilla looked at Adeline.
“You should take off that coat.”
Adeline's spine stiffened.
Enzo answered for her.
“She can wear it as long as she wants.”
Camilla's eyes flashed.
“You enjoy this.”
“No.”
“You wanted a reason to humiliate me.”
“I wanted to marry you six hours ago.”
The statement landed with brutal simplicity.
For a moment, Camilla looked wounded.
Then anger returned.
“She manipulated you.”
“She has worked here eleven days.”
“That is long enough.”
“For what?”
“To find out what kind of man you are.”
Enzo's gaze narrowed.
Camilla realized she had said too much.
Adeline heard it too.
“How would you know when I started watching him?” Adeline asked.
Camilla looked at her.
“I don't know what you mean.”
“You said eleven days was long enough for me to manipulate him.”
“So?”
“I never told you when I started work.”
Silence fell.
Camilla's expression froze.
Enzo slowly turned toward her.
“She is right.”
Victor intervened.
“Everyone knows when new staff arrives.”
Antonio shook his head.
“No, they don't.”
Victor looked at him.
Antonio's voice remained calm.
“Camilla does not live here.”
Judge Price took a small step backward.
Enzo saw it.
“You want to leave, Eleanor?”
“I think this is becoming a private matter.”
“It became public when the crop came down in front of two hundred people.”
Judge Price's eyes hardened.
“You should be careful with your tone.”
Enzo almost smiled.
“Why?”
The question irritated her more than any threat could have.
Before she answered, Matteo returned.
His face was pale.
Enzo looked at him.
“What happened?”
“We called the number from Benton's phone.”
“And?”
Matteo looked toward the people standing in the doorway.
“The phone rang inside the ballroom.”
No one spoke.
“Whose phone?” Enzo asked.
Matteo's gaze moved across the room.
Then it stopped on Judge Eleanor Price.
Every head turned toward her.
Judge Price's face did not change.
But inside the pocket of her evening jacket, something began to vibrate.
Judge Price finally removed the phone from her pocket.
She did not hand it over.
She held it against her palm as though possession itself restored her authority.
Victor stepped closer to her and said something too low for Adeline to hear.
Enzo saw the exchange.
“So you two have already decided on the explanation.”
Judge Price's eyes flashed.
“No one is required to explain private calls to you.”
“Correct.”
Enzo nodded toward Matteo.
“But Leo Benton is my employee, his car was abandoned, evidence was found inside it, and his most recent call was to the phone you are holding.”
He paused.
“That makes your privacy relevant whether you enjoy the fact or not.”
Victor looked around the study.
“You are forgetting who is in this room.”
“No.”
Enzo's answer came immediately.
“That has been the problem all evening.”
Adeline looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means everyone keeps measuring whether a fact matters by the title of the person standing beside it.”
He looked at Judge Price.
“A missing systems manager matters even if he is not a judge.”
Then at Adeline.
“A bleeding employee matters even if she is not a senator.”
Then at Victor.
“And a lie remains a lie even if it is wearing a tuxedo.”
Antonio's eyes narrowed with reluctant approval.
Judge Price's face hardened.
She slipped the phone back into her pocket.
“I will not be lectured on justice by a Marchetti.”
Enzo absorbed the insult.
“Good.”
He opened the study door.
“Then do not listen to me.”
He pointed toward the ballroom.
“Listen to the people you watched remain silent.”
Judge Price looked toward the corridor.
For the first time, the confidence in her posture looked rehearsed rather than real.
Adeline realized something important.
The powerful people in the ballroom had not failed to move because they lacked consciences.
Many had failed because they were calculating which person would still be powerful when the night ended.
May you like
Now that calculation was changing by the minute.
And Judge Eleanor Price, who had spent a career deciding which facts entered a record, had just discovered that she might become one of them.
