Chapter 5
By sunrise, I was no longer a witness.
I was a suspect.
Agent Weiss did not handcuff me, but two officers stood outside the interview room while I answered the same questions again.
Where were you before work?
Had you met the nanny?
Did you know sedatives?
Did you have access to medical compounds?
Could anyone confirm you had not been near the twins’ supplies?
Every answer sounded weak.
I lived alone.
I took the bus.
I had medical training.
I knew how to calm the babies.
I had a history with Marco.
I had a motive to make him look guilty.
That was how lies worked.
They did not need to be stronger than truth.
They only needed to wrap around it.
Damien watched from outside the glass.
His face was unreadable.
That hurt more than I expected.
I told myself I did not care what a mafia boss believed.
Then I looked at the twins’ room and knew I did.
Because if Damien believed I had touched his sons, I would not survive it.
Agent Weiss placed the photo of the note on the table.
Ellie Hart did this.
“Do you recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
“Did the nanny have enemies?”
“I didn’t even know her name.”
“Bianca Russo,” Agent Weiss said. “Twenty-nine. Hired three months ago. Recommended by Marco Bellini.”
My head lifted.
“Recommended by Marco?”
“Yes.”
“Then why am I still in here?”
“Because Marco claims you and Bianca knew each other.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he did.
“He is lying.”
“We’re checking.”
The door opened.
Damien stepped in.
Agent Weiss frowned.
“This is a closed interview.”
“I have evidence.”
She looked ready to argue, then saw his face and stopped.
Damien placed a tablet on the table.
Security footage.
Bellavita kitchen hallway.
The time stamp showed twenty minutes before the twins turned blue.
Bianca stood near a service shelf with two bottles.
Marco entered.
They argued.
No sound.
Bianca tried to walk away.
Marco grabbed her wrist.
She shoved something into her apron pocket.
He looked toward the camera.
Then the screen went black.
Agent Weiss leaned forward.
“Where did this come from?”
“My restaurant,” Damien said.
“You said cameras failed.”
“My manager said cameras failed. He is now explaining himself.”
The footage resumed from another angle.
Me.
Carrying plates.
Nowhere near Bianca.
Nowhere near the bottles.
I could breathe again.
Agent Weiss replayed the clip.
“What did Bianca put in her pocket?”
Damien’s jaw tightened.
“We don’t know.”
My phone buzzed again from the evidence bag on the counter.
Agent Weiss put on gloves and checked it.
Another unknown message.
The first note failed. Try the second.
Attached was a video.
Agent Weiss played it with no sound at first.
My apartment.
My kitchen.
A gloved hand placing a small vial under my sink.
I felt ice move through me.
“They’re framing my home.”
Damien was already at the door.
Agent Weiss grabbed his arm.
“Do not send your men.”
He looked at her hand.
She did not let go.
“If you contaminate that apartment, we lose the evidence.”
He forced himself still.
“Then move faster.”
They did.
Agents searched my apartment while I sat in the hospital with a guard outside my door and Damien’s mother beside me.
Rosa refused to leave.
I did not understand it.
“You don’t know me,” I said.
She looked toward the nursery window.
“My daughter-in-law Isabella once told me the truth always enters dressed like trouble.”
I swallowed.
“She sounds brave.”
“She was.”
Her voice broke.
“I did not listen to her.”
That confession hung between us.
“What did she tell you?”
Rosa looked older suddenly.
“That Marco smiled too much. That my son trusted the wrong brother.”
“Brother?”
Rosa’s eyes filled.
“Not by blood. Damien and Marco grew up together. My husband took Marco in after his father died.”
Family.
Again.
The people closest to the door were always the ones who could unlock it for danger.
Agent Weiss returned that afternoon.
“We found the vial under your sink,” she said. “We also found the person who planted it.”
She turned the tablet toward me.
The hallway footage showed a man entering my building.
A man in a Moretti security jacket.
Damien’s head guard, Vincent.
Damien went very still.
Rosa whispered, “No.”
Vincent had been beside the twins all night.
Vincent had held the bottle after I found the powder.
Vincent had access to everything.
May you like
Then Agent Weiss said the sentence that changed the case.
“Vincent is missing.”
