Chapter 3 - The Web of Secrets
The silence inside the cold concrete room was suffocating.
Vincent took a slow step forward, placing himself slightly in front of me, his posture radiating lethal authority. "Paul. I don't remember giving you permission to enter the sub-basement while I was down here."
Paul didn't flinch. He adjusted his silk tie with a calm, deliberate motion. "As estate manager, Mr. Moretti, my tablet receives an automatic alert whenever the high-security utility vaults are opened outside of scheduled maintenance hours. I simply came to ensure there wasn't a system malfunction."
His eyes flicked past Vincent’s shoulder, locking onto me with a cold, calculating intensity. "I see Miss Morgan is taking her duties as a nanny quite far. I didn't realize child care included inspecting the HVAC infrastructure."
"Miss Morgan noticed an anomaly in my sons' wing," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a register that could cut glass. "An anomaly that you installed eighteen months ago."
Paul sighed faintly, tapping a few keys on his tablet screen. "If you are referring to the aromatherapy system, Mr. Moretti, I merely executed the directives provided by Dr. Blake. You signed the authorization forms yourself after Mrs. Moretti's passing. Dr. Blake assured us it was vital for the boys' psychiatric recovery."
"And who inspects these jugs, Paul?" I asked, stepping out from behind Vincent. "Who refills them when the levels drop?"
Paul smiled—a thin, artificial stretch of the lips that didn't reach his pale blue eyes. "Dr. Blake delivers the solution personally every three weeks. He handles the refilling himself to maintain the exact pharmaceutical concentration. Neither I nor the maintenance staff touch the chemical reservoirs. That was Dr. Blake's strict instruction."
It was a perfect circle of deflection. The estate manager blamed the doctor; the doctor claimed medical privilege; the father was kept in the dark by his own grief and trust in "experts."
"Paul," Vincent said softly. "Give me your tablet and your security keycard."
Paul froze. "Mr. Moretti?"
"You're relieved of your duties. Effective immediately."
"Vincent, be reasonable," Paul said, his composure finally cracking around the edges. "I've managed this estate for six years. I managed your wife's personal affairs before her accident. You cannot simply terminate my contract because a secondhand nanny smelled a fragrance line!"
"I can," Vincent replied coldly. "And if my sons have so much as a microgram of poison in their bloodstreams, terminating your contract will be the gentlest thing I do to you today. Hand over the card."
Paul stared at Vincent for three long seconds. He realized he had lost control of the room. Without another word, he unclipped his master keycard from his belt, set it along with his tablet on a metal supply shelf, and turned to leave.
"One more thing, Paul," I called out before he reached the door.
He paused, looking back over his shoulder.
"When Mrs. Harper dropped those towels upstairs," I said, "she looked terrified. Was she afraid of what was in the vent, or was she afraid of you?"
Paul’s jaw clenched tightly. "Mrs. Harper is an old woman with weak nerves, Miss Morgan. I suggest you focus on reading bedtime stories before you find yourself out on the street alongside me."
He stepped through the heavy steel door and let it slam shut behind him.
Vincent immediately turned to the stainless-steel cabinet. He pulled a silver pen from his pocket, unscrewed the cap of one of the glass jugs, and dipped the end of his pen into the liquid, wiping a drop onto a clean white handkerchief he pulled from his suit pocket. He folded the silk carefully and slipped it into his breast pocket.
"My private private-investigation team operates out of Boston," Vincent said, his eyes burning with cold determination. "They have a chemical analysis lab on retainer that answers only to me. I'm flying this sample out on my helicopter within the hour."
"Good," I said. "But we have another immediate problem."
"What?"
May you like
"Dr. Blake," I said. "If Paul contacts him right now to tell him he's been fired and that we were in this room, Dr. Blake won't come back here. He'll destroy his private lab records and vanish."
Vincent pulled his phone out again, his thumb hovering over his contact list. "Then we don't give him the chance to vanish. We bring him here tonight under the pretense of an emergency."
