Chapter 7: Dominic Asks for Loyalty Where Evidence Is Required
Dominic did not follow Emily toward the private room. He stayed in the service corridor with the cold-room door open behind him, his white dinner jacket bright beneath the hard ceiling lights. The ballroom waited beyond the archway, stripped of its music and guests. The covered cake stood at the center of that silence, guarded now by Marco and two members of the security staff.
I kept Lily against my side. Her fingers had twisted into the fabric of my skirt, and her white sneakers were gray at the edges from the marble dust near the broken plate. She watched the stretcher disappear, then turned back toward the cold room.
Dominic noticed.
His expression changed when Lily looked at the open doorway. The stern authority he had carried through the party gave way to something narrower and more deliberate. He took a small notepad from the inside pocket of his jacket, wrote on it, and held it toward Marco. Marco read the page, then looked at me.
The instruction was simple in its effect. No one entered the cold room without Marco present. No one handled the cake, the silver box, or the recovered traces. The staff were to remain in their assigned places until the records had been reviewed.
Dominic had chosen control before explanation.
Marco began placing evidence markers around the pale residue and the cart's wheel tracks. The clean line left by the stretcher cut through the floor like a mistake no one could undo. Beneath the service cart, the silver box remained inside its clear covering. The silver thread recovered from Emily's hand had been sealed separately, while the apron-like fabric found near the threshold lay folded on a clean cloth.
I watched Dominic study each item. His gaze stopped on Emily's evidence bag, then moved to Lily.
I understood what he wanted from me. He wanted certainty. He wanted to know whether my daughter had seen Emily, followed Emily, or touched something she should not have touched. He also wanted the household to remain intact around him, as if order itself could keep the danger from spreading.
I shook my head before he could turn that expectation toward me.
Lily had not created the danger. She had interrupted it.
Dominic's jaw tightened. He wrote again, this time more slowly, and gave the page to Marco. Marco showed it to me. I was to remain available for the inquiry, but Lily was not to be separated from me. That condition was protection, but it was also a warning. My employment, my access to the estate, and my credibility now rested inside the same investigation.
A physician's assistant passed through the corridor carrying a tray of sealed medical supplies. No one spoke. From the private room came the muted sounds of drawers opening and instruments being arranged. Emily's condition remained unknown.
Marco pointed toward the ballroom security station. A bank of monitors waited there, their screens filled with frozen views of empty corridors and polished doors. Dominic turned in that direction. I followed with Lily pressed close to my hip.
At the station, Marco selected the camera covering the service passage. The image showed the corridor in gray-blue light, the time stamp advancing in silent increments. The view reached the ballroom entrance, then stopped short of the cold-room door.
A narrow section remained unseen.
Dominic leaned toward the screen. Marco indicated the missing coverage, then the radio records beside it. The page showed a gap during the minutes before Lily ran to the cake.
Dominic looked at me again.
May you like
This time, I stepped closer to the monitor. Lily raised her hand and pointed past the screen, toward the corridor we had just left.
The household's suspicion had been aimed at the nearest person. Now the gap itself stood between us and whoever had used it.
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