Chapter 2 - THREE SECONDS IN THE DARK
The darkness lasted only three seconds.
It was enough.
A woman screamed.
Crystal shattered.
Someone slammed into Maya’s shoulder, knocking the tablet from her hands.
When the emergency lights flashed red, Eleanor was no longer beside the head table.
One security guard lay on the floor, blood running from his eyebrow.
The pearl clutch was gone.
Arthur’s glass was gone too.
“Seal the doors!” Arthur shouted.
Guests rushed toward the exits anyway.
“Stay where you are,” Maya yelled. “Nobody touches the tables.”
A broad-shouldered man in a tuxedo pushed through the crowd.
It was Julian Sterling, Arthur’s oldest son and the hotel’s chief operating officer.
He grabbed Maya by the arm.
“What did you do?”
“She tried to poison your father.”
“My mother would never—”
“Then explain the video.”
Julian looked at the shattered tablet.
The screen was black.
“You conveniently destroyed your own evidence.”
“I didn’t destroy it.”
Arthur stepped between them.
“Take your hand off her.”
Julian obeyed, but his stare stayed hard.
A young busboy named Ben crawled beneath the head table and lifted something with a napkin.
“Mr. Sterling,” he whispered. “I found this.”
It was a tiny glass vial.
The label had been peeled away.
Maya’s stomach tightened.
“That wasn’t in Eleanor’s purse,” she said.
Julian gave a cold laugh.
“And you know that how?”
“Because the vial I saw was blue.”
Arthur turned toward her.
“You saw it before tonight?”
Maya hesitated.
May you like
Across the ballroom, one of the kitchen doors swung slowly shut.
Someone was watching them from the other side.
