Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the Mansion
The traitor had access to everything.
Medication.
Security schedules.
Medical appointments.
Even the route used to transport Elena.
Gabriel gathered twelve senior employees in the dining room.
Elena entered unexpectedly.
Nico looked irritated.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“If one of them touched your medication, I should.”
“This isn’t a medical meeting.”
“No. It’s apparently a meeting about someone trying to murder my patient.”
One man laughed.
Elena turned.
“Something funny?”
The man stopped.
Nico leaned back.
“Continue.”
Gabriel placed photographs on the table.
Dr. Keller.
A driver.
Two guards.
A household manager named Victor Sanz.
Victor had worked for Nico’s father.
Twenty-two years.
“I changed no medication,” Victor said.
Elena watched him.
Not his face.
His hands.
When Gabriel mentioned the punctured vial, Victor’s thumb rubbed against his index finger.
A nervous repetition.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
Elena noticed.
Later she told Nico.
“You’re accusing Victor?”
“I’m observing him.”
“He carried me out of my father’s funeral.”
“Which makes him emotionally important. Not innocent.”
Nico’s expression hardened.
“You don’t understand loyalty.”
“I understand people.”
“You’ve known him an hour.”
“I’ve known patients who lied about drinking, drugs, pain, pregnancies, medication, abuse and suicide attempts. People tell the truth with their bodies long before their mouths catch up.”
Nico stared.
“You think Victor did it.”
“I think you should check.”
Nico did.
Gabriel searched Victor’s office.
They found nothing.
Nico said nothing to Elena.
But that night, Victor made a phone call.
Gabriel traced it.
The number belonged to a disposable phone.
The disposable phone had contacted Dr. Keller seventeen times.
Victor disappeared before sunrise.
And on his desk he left an envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Elena and Noah.
Taken seven years earlier.
May you like
On the back were four words:
SHE WAS ALWAYS THE KEY.
