Chapter 2 - The Maid Who Knew Too Much
Rafe dismissed the servants.
Margarite refused to move.
“You allowed this woman into my home?”
Rafe looked at his mother.
“I did.”
“You knew she was investigating us?”
“I knew she was investigating me.”
Margarite's expression hardened.
Sloan remained silent.
Rafe looked toward her.
“Tell me.”
Sloan reached into her apron and removed a small evidence bag.
Inside was a folded napkin.
“The tea was contaminated.”
Margarite laughed bitterly.
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves someone touched the cup after it was prepared.”
Rafe stepped closer.
“How?”
Sloan pointed toward the kitchen.
“Your servants use cloth napkins to carry the tea service. Whoever handled this one left traces of a powder.”
Margarite stared at her.
“You're a maid.”
Sloan's gaze remained steady.
“That's what everyone is supposed to believe.”
Rafe almost smiled.
Margarite noticed.
“You think this is amusing?”
“No.”
Rafe's voice became cold.
“I think I should have listened sooner.”
He had spent weeks losing weight.
His hands trembled.
His stomach burned after meals.
Yet every examination showed nothing conclusive.
Sloan had noticed something doctors hadn't.
His symptoms always appeared between twenty and forty minutes after meals.
And someone in the house always asked whether he had finished his drink.
That person was not Margarite.
It was the household physician.
Dr. Everett Lane.
Sloan placed another photograph on the table.
Rafe stared at it.
The doctor was standing beside a cabinet in the private dining room.
A cabinet Sloan had been forbidden to open.
Margarite went pale.
Rafe noticed.
“Mother?”
She didn't answer.
May you like
Sloan looked at her.
“What is inside that cabinet?”
