Chapter 4 - The Empty Car
Arthur Vale's Bentley sat in the rain with the driver's door unlocked.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
Not much. Just a dark smear near the leather seam.
Detective Quinn stopped me before I touched it.
"You own gloves, Mr. Moretti. Let my people work."
"This is my property."
"Tonight it's a crime scene. Learn to share."
I disliked her less every minute.
Vincent swept the greenhouse while officers checked the grounds. No Arthur. No weapon. No phone.
In the trunk they found a tuxedo jacket in a dry-cleaning bag and a small birthday present wrapped in silver paper.
The tag read: FOR ETHAN, FROM UNCLE ARTHUR.
Arthur wasn't family. Men like him had simply been around long enough to steal the title.
Quinn opened the package after photographing it.
Inside was a chess set.
One black king was missing.
"Does that mean something?" she asked.
"Arthur taught Ethan chess."
"And the missing king?"
"Could mean nothing."
"You don't believe that."
I didn't.
Back inside, Sophia sat with Lily in the breakfast room. Ethan had refused to leave her side. He had given Lily his favorite dinosaur toy, a battered green T-rex named General Bitey.
"She can keep him tonight," Ethan told me.
Lily hugged the dinosaur. "Forever?"
"Tonight," he said firmly. "He's expensive."
Sophia laughed despite herself. Then her eyes met mine, and the laugh disappeared.
"Am I still a suspect?"
I wanted to say no.
Instead I said, "The vial was in your locker."
"Someone put it there."
"I know."
"Do you?"
There was anger beneath her fear now. Good. Anger I could work with.
"Sophia, who knows your locker combination?"
"Nobody. It's Lily's birthday."
I frowned. "What?"
"The combination. Zero-four-one-nine. Lily was born April nineteenth."
Quinn, entering behind me, wrote it down.
"Anyone close to you know that date?"
Sophia's face changed.
"Arthur."
The room went still.
"Why would Arthur know Lily's birthday?" I asked.
She looked at the floor.
"Because after my husband died, Arthur helped settle the insurance claim. He came to the house. He brought Lily a stuffed rabbit."
I felt something ugly twist in my stomach.
"How often did he come?"
Sophia looked up. "Why are you asking me like that?"
"Because he knew your locker code, had access to Ethan's medical records, and may have been in my kitchen."
Quinn's phone buzzed.
She read the message once, then handed it to me.
The blood in Arthur's Bentley had already produced a preliminary match.
It wasn't Arthur Vale's blood.
It belonged to Vincent Russo.
May you like
My security chief was standing ten feet away from me.
And suddenly every gun in the room mattered.
