Chapter 2 - The Woman Holding the NeedleFor several seconds, neither woman moved.
Isabelle’s wrist shook inside Eleanor’s grip. The needle hovered inches above the crimson sleeve of Eleanor’s nightgown.
“You’re awake,” Isabelle breathed.
“Disappointing, isn’t it?”
“Let go of me.”
“Put the syringe on the table.”
Isabelle’s fear hardened into something more dangerous.
“You don’t understand what is happening.”
“I understand that your mother drank from the bowl intended for me. I understand that I have enough poison in my blood to kill a younger woman. And I understand that you entered my bedroom carrying a needle.”
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Isabelle turned toward the door.
Eleanor tightened her grip. “Don’t.”
The bedroom lights came on.
Clara stood beside the door with Marcus Hale and two police detectives. One detective aimed a service weapon toward the floor while the other held up his badge.
“Set down the syringe,” Detective Lena Brooks ordered.
Isabelle went still.
Her face emptied of color.
“You called the police?” she asked Eleanor.
“I invited witnesses.”
The syringe slipped from Isabelle’s fingers and landed on the carpet. Marcus placed a clear evidence container over it.
Detective Brooks took Isabelle’s hands and secured them behind her back.
“You are being detained while we investigate an attempted poisoning and the death of Maria Rossi.”
“No.” Isabelle struggled. “You don’t know what was in that syringe.”
“That is why we have laboratories,” Eleanor said.
Arthur appeared in the hallway wearing a robe, his hair disordered.
“What is going on?”
He saw his wife in handcuffs.
Then he saw the syringe.
His expression collapsed.
“Isabelle?”
She looked at him desperately. “Arthur, tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“That I would never hurt your mother.”
Eleanor watched her son’s face.
Arthur seemed genuinely stunned.
But Eleanor had learned that shock could be rehearsed.
Detective Brooks escorted Isabelle toward the door.
As she passed Arthur, Isabelle stopped resisting.
“You promised me this would never happen,” she whispered.
Arthur stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
Isabelle laughed once, bitterly.
Then she looked toward Eleanor.
“You think you’ve won because you caught me holding the needle. You haven’t even found the person who filled it.”
The detectives took her downstairs.
Arthur turned to his mother.
“Mom, I swear I didn’t know.”
Eleanor did not answer.
A crash echoed from the first floor.
Marcus reached beneath his jacket and rushed into the hallway. Clara followed him, with Eleanor and Arthur close behind.
The alarm panel beside the staircase flashed red.
STUDY WINDOW OPEN.
They reached the study and found the safe door hanging open.
The original will was gone.
So were three encrypted drives containing confidential records from the Vance Corporation.
Sophia lay beside the desk.
Blood darkened the silver hair near her temple.
Eleanor dropped to her knees.
“Sophia.”
Sophia’s eyes fluttered.
“He wore gloves,” she whispered. “I couldn’t see his face.”
“Don’t speak.”
“The ring.”
Eleanor leaned closer.
“What ring?”
“A black stone. On his right hand.”
Then Sophia lost consciousness.
Paramedics arrived within minutes. They confirmed that Sophia was alive but needed emergency surgery.
Detective Brooks ordered the estate sealed.
No guests had entered that night. No exterior doors appeared to have been forced. Whoever attacked Sophia either had access to the security system or had been inside the house before the trap began.
Marcus examined the broken study window.
“This was staged,” he said. “The glass fell outward. It was broken from inside.”
“Then the intruder did not use the window,” Clara said.
“No.”
Arthur leaned against the desk, breathing hard.
Eleanor looked at his hands.
No ring.
Julian wore several rings, but none with a black stone.
Clara wore no rings at all.
Sophia’s words could have described one of dozens of executives who had attended the birthday banquet.
Or they could have been intended to mislead them.
Detective Brooks’s phone rang.
She stepped into the hallway and returned moments later with a guarded expression.
“The preliminary analysis of the syringe is complete,” she said.
“What was in it?” Arthur asked.
“A fast-acting sedative. Not thallium.”
Arthur exhaled with relief.
“That proves Isabelle wasn’t trying to kill her.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “It proves she wanted me unconscious.”
Detective Brooks nodded. “The dosage was strong enough to leave Mrs. Vance unresponsive for hours. In someone with her current medical condition, it could still have caused respiratory failure.”
Arthur covered his face.
“What was she planning to do after Mom was unconscious?”
“The will is missing,” Clara said. “Perhaps someone intended to replace it.”
Marcus examined the safe’s electronic panel.
“The correct combination was used.”
Eleanor’s gaze shifted toward the empty doorway.
Only she and Sophia supposedly knew the code.
But three months earlier, Eleanor had begun experiencing strange lapses in memory. On several occasions, she had entered combinations and passwords while Isabelle stood nearby, pretending to organize medication or documents.
A hidden camera recorded the hallway during the break-in.
Marcus pulled the footage onto a laptop.
At 1:43 a.m., Isabelle entered Eleanor’s bedroom.
At 1:46, the camera feed froze.
It resumed seven minutes later.
During those seven minutes, someone opened the study safe, attacked Sophia, and removed the documents.
“Whoever did this accessed the internal network,” Clara said.
“Could Isabelle have done it from her phone?” Arthur asked.
“She was in Mother’s bedroom.”
“Then she had help.”
Eleanor looked toward her eldest son’s empty place in the hallway.
“Where is Julian?”
Arthur frowned. “He left after dinner. He said he had an early flight.”
Marcus searched the guest logs.
Julian’s car had exited through the front gate at 11:08 p.m.
But another record caught his attention.
At 1:39 a.m., the estate’s private underground garage opened using an executive access card.
The card belonged to Julian Vance.
Clara closed her eyes.
“No.”
Arthur stared at the screen. “Someone stole it.”
“Perhaps,” Eleanor said.
Marcus opened footage from the underground garage.
A black sedan entered. The windows were tinted. The driver remained invisible.
The elevator camera had been disabled.
At 1:55 a.m., the same sedan left.
Detective Brooks requested an immediate search for Julian.
They found him at Logan Airport shortly before dawn, seated in a private lounge with no luggage and a one-way ticket to Zurich.
He denied everything.
“My access card disappeared two days ago,” he told the police. “I was flying to meet an investor.”
“At four in the morning?” Detective Brooks asked.
“International business does not follow domestic office hours.”
When informed that Isabelle had been arrested, Julian appeared irritated rather than shocked.
“She has always been unstable,” he said.
When told that Sophia had been attacked, he requested a lawyer.
When asked about the missing will, he smiled.
“My mother changes her will every time someone disappoints her. Perhaps she misplaced it.”
Eleanor listened through the observation-room speaker.
Julian’s right hand rested on the interview table.
A pale line circled his ring finger, as though he had recently removed something.
Marcus placed a photograph on the table before Eleanor.
It had been taken at the birthday banquet.
Julian stood behind her chair, raising his glass.
On his right hand was a ring set with a black onyx stone.
The same kind of ring Sophia had described.
Clara turned away.
Arthur sank into a chair.
Eleanor stared at the image of the son she had once carried through a fever, the boy she had taught to read balance sheets at twelve, the man she had defended whenever the board accused him of being too ambitious.
Before she could speak, Detective Brooks entered the observation room.
“We received a call from the hospital,” she said.
Eleanor stood.
“Sophia?”
“She survived surgery. But that is not why they called.”
The detective held up a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a small digital recorder.
“This was found sewn into the lining of Sophia’s uniform. It was recording during the attack.”
Marcus connected it to a secure laptop.
Static filled the room.
They heard footsteps.
Sophia’s voice demanded that someone leave the study.
Then a man answered.
The voice was distorted, quiet, and strangely familiar.
“You should have stayed loyal to the family, Sophia.”
A struggle followed.
Something struck the floor.
Then Sophia whispered a name.
May you like
Not Julian’s.
“Arthur.”
