Chapter 2: The Glass text
Alex arrived within minutes, still in his open collar, frowning at his phone as if my message were a poorly timed prank.
I told him everything in a rush that left no room for the joke we had once shared. His face moved through disbelief into something colder when I repeated Nathan’s words about the dose and the heart attack and the perfect suspect. He reached for the door to go find his best man. I stopped him. The police were already on the way. We needed Nathan to show his hand, not to be warned by a husband charging down the stairs.
Nathan knocked less than five minutes later, champagne flute in hand, smile restored for an audience of one.
“Like old times,” he said. “A private toast before the whole company owns you.”
May you like
Alex did not take the glass. He asked Nathan to set it on the table. Nathan’s eyes flicked once to me—dust still on my knees, hair undone—and the smile thinned. Distant sirens rose along the estate road. Nathan set the flute down carefully, stepped back, and ran.
He knew the service corridors better than the newlyweds. By the time officers flooded the second floor, Nathan was gone into the dark beyond the gardens. The champagne was collected. A preliminary field test flagged a substance that did not belong in celebratory wine. Under the bed, where I had hidden for a surprise, the crime-scene team found a small camera that was not part of the estate’s inventory, its lens aimed at the door and the table where a glass would naturally sit.
