Chapter 3 - The Untouched Glass
The silence in the hall was no longer an absence of sound; it was an active, suffocating entity.
Odette sat frozen on the bench, her chest heaving against the tight bodice of her emerald gown. Her architectural chignon had loosened, dark tendrils of hair clinging to the cold sweat on her temples. She stared at the crystal tumbler in Hector’s right hand as if it were a live grenade.
"Hector..." she choked out, her American accent cracking down the middle. "You're humiliating me over a toddler's fantasy... You think I would—"
"I asked you a question, Odette," Hector interrupted. His tone was smooth, devoid of inflection, possessed of the horrifying tranquility of a judge reading a predetermined verdict. "And I have never asked a question twice in my own home."
At the far end of the long mahogany table, a slender man of sixty-two with silver-streaked hair and wire-rimmed glasses stood up. It was Dr. Arthur Vance, the syndicate’s chief medical examiner and Hector’s personal physician for three decades. Vance was a man who had pulled bullets from Hector’s ribs in dockside basements and analyzed chemical contraband for the family’s freight lines.
Vance walked down the length of the carpet, his polished Oxfords making no sound against the pile. He stopped two paces from Hector.
"Allow me, Hector," Vance murmured.
Hector handed the tumbler to the doctor without looking away from Odette. Vance pulled a clean silver pocketknife and a small glass dropper of clear reagent from his inner breast pocket. He drew a drop of the amber liquid into the vial and dipped the polished sterling silver blade of the knife into the tumbler.
Within three seconds, the lustrous silver blade turned a sickly, tarnished gunmetal-black.
Vance brought the rim of the glass toward his nose, wafting the vapors with a gentle flick of his fingers. His face tightened into hard, grim lines.
"Aconitine," Vance announced, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the frozen room. "Extracted from blue monkshood and concentrated with potassium cyanide. Odorless when mixed with peated malt. Three sips, Hector. In thirty minutes, numbness of the tongue and limbs. In an hour, violent arrhythmia followed by total heart failure. By two in the morning, you would have been pronounced dead in your sleep from sudden myocardial infarction."
A collective gasp shuddered through the room. Women pressed cloth napkins to their lips; hardened port captains leaned back, their hands instinctively drifting toward the holsters hidden beneath their dinner jackets.
Hector’s jaw shifted slightly, the muscle twitching once beneath his scar.
"A widow-to-be," Hector murmured, staring down at Odette. "The devoted fiancée, weeping beside my bed while the coroner signed the certificate."
Odette scrambled backward on the bench, her manicured nails digging into the velvet. "No! No, someone else did it! The catering staff—the servers—anyone could have poured that drink while you were in the loggia!"
"Nobody touches that bottle except me," Hector said, his slate eyes darkening into abyss-like depths. "And you, Odette. You poured it yourself before we sat down. I watched you bring the decanter from my private sideboard."
He turned his head toward the entrance. Stationed at the double doors were two colossal men in tailored black suits: Marcus and Donovan, Hector’s personal enforcers.
"Seal the estate," Hector ordered. "Drop the iron gates. No car leaves the driveway. No phone calls out. Marcus, take every associate and relative into the winter conservatory. Search every pocket, every handbag, every phone."
"Hector, please!" Odette screamed as Marcus stepped forward with handcuffs. "Don't do this! I love you! I raised Maiselle like my own!"
Hector bent down. He picked up Maiselle’s small, ruined suitcase by its brass handle. Gravy dripped from the leather, staining the carpet. He handed the filthy case to Donovan.
May you like
"Burn it," Hector said softly. "Then call the town car. Maisy is going to need a new wardrobe."
He turned away from Odette completely, bending down to lift Maiselle into his arms. The little girl wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his throat, sobbing softly. Hector rested his large hand against the back of her head, shielding her from the spectacle as Marcus dragged Odette toward the library.
