Chapter 1 - THE CHERRY THAT NEVER REACHED HIS LIPS
The cherry was cold and dark between Dante Moretti's thumb and forefinger, an inch from his mouth, when the small hand closed around his wrist.
He did not move. He did not blink. He looked down at the fingers curled over his cuff — no wider than a peach, the nails bitten flat — and then at the girl they belonged to, standing in the candlelight in a gray dress two sizes too large, one braid unraveling down her shoulder, her eyes the color of wet coffee and fixed on his face as if every other person in the room had been switched off.
Don't eat that cherry, she said. It's poisoned.
Twelve guests. Silver candlesticks burning down the length of the table. Cream cloth, white orchids, rain ticking the tall windows that faced the Sound. The Archbishop had finished a joke ten seconds earlier. Isabella Columbo, in cream silk that matched the cloth, had still been laughing.
She was still laughing when the child spoke. The laugh stopped halfway out of her throat and stayed there, caught, like a coin in a slot.
For one second her smile froze. Then it came back — too wide, too fast, the way a door slams and pretends it was only closed. She set her wine glass down. The rim clicked against the china.
Well, she said brightly. What a strange child.
Nobody laughed.
At the doorway to the servants' hall, Victor Romano had been head of Moretti security for eleven years. Broad in the shoulder, gray at the temples, he had risen to the radio at his collar without appearing to move at all. His thumb rested on the button. His thumb did not press.
Dante was forty-two years old. He had inherited the family six months ago. He had eaten alone at this table every Tuesday since his mother died, and in all that time no child had ever touched him inside his own house.
He looked at the small hand on his wrist. He looked at his fiancée. He looked at Victor, very slowly. Then he lowered the cherry back onto the silver dish.
Sweetheart, he said. His voice was quiet. How do you know?
Sophie did not answer at once. She looked at Isabella. She looked at Victor. Then she looked back at Dante, and her small mouth trembled once, and she said the only thing a six-year-old could say.
I saw.
The Archbishop cleared his throat. The judge lifted his napkin and set it down again. Near the far end of the table, a capo let his hand drift, without a sound, to the inside of his jacket.
Dante did not move.
Somewhere in the kitchen, a plate broke.
He was aware of all of it — the rain, the broken plate, the way the senator's aide had stopped chewing — and none of it mattered as much as the hand still closed around his wrist. Children did not touch him. That was not modesty; it was arithmetic. He had spent his life arranging himself so that no small thing could reach him and no small thing could be used against him. Six months in his brother's chair had taught him exactly one lesson worth keeping: the people who die are always the ones standing next to the man who matters.
And here was a child, standing next to him, with her fingers on his pulse.
Show me, he said.
Isabella's hand came down on his sleeve. Light. Proprietary. The way she touched him when a camera was somewhere in the room.
Darling. She's six. She has a fever. Elena told me herself the child has been unwell all week.
Dante looked at her hand on his arm, and then at her face, and for a moment he could not have said which of the two he trusted less.
Then you won't mind waiting, he said.
Sophie released his wrist.
She stood so still that the candlelight seemed to move around her rather than across her.
Dante turned the silver dish away from himself.
“Victor. Nobody touches the food.”
The security chief straightened.
“Sir, perhaps we should take the child downstairs.”
“No.”
The single word silenced the room.
Dante looked at Sophie.
“Tell me what you saw.”
The little girl swallowed.
“The lady had a tiny bottle.”
Isabella laughed again.
“Dante, this is absurd.”
Sophie flinched.
Dante noticed.
“Which lady?”
Sophie raised one trembling finger.
She pointed at Isabella.
The room went silent.
Isabella's expression hardened.
“That's enough.”
She stood.
Dante remained seated.
“Sit down, Isabella.”
“Are you seriously going to let a servant's child accuse me of poisoning you?”
“I asked you to sit.”
Something in his voice made her obey.
Sophie stepped closer to Dante.
“She put drops on the red ones.”
Dante glanced at the cherries.
“How many drops?”
“Three.”
He studied the child.
“Where did you see this?”
“Behind the flower room.”
Victor shifted near the doorway.
“The conservatory?” Dante asked.
Sophie nodded.
“She said it would make you sleepy forever.”
A sharp breath escaped someone at the far end of the table.
Isabella went pale.
“That is a lie.”
Dante looked toward Victor.
“Secure the dish. Call an ambulance and the police. I want the food examined.”
Victor hesitated.
It was almost imperceptible.
But Dante saw it.
“Now, Victor.”
“Yes, sir.”
The security chief reached for his radio.
Sophie suddenly grabbed Dante's sleeve again.
“Don't let him take it.”
Dante looked down.
“Why?”
Her voice became a whisper.
“Because he gave her the bottle.”
For the first time that evening, Dante Moretti looked genuinely surprised.
Victor's hand stopped halfway to his radio.
Isabella closed her eyes.
And somewhere beneath the mansion's polished floors, a door slammed.
Dante rose slowly.
“Everyone remains seated.”
Then he turned toward the six-year-old girl.
“Sweetheart, where is your mother?”
Sophie began to cry.
“She went to get my medicine.”
Dante crouched to her height.
“And when was that?”
Sophie rubbed her eyes.
“Before the lady put the bad water on your cherries.”
Dante looked toward the servants' hall.
May you like
Elena had been gone for almost forty minutes.
And suddenly he understood that the poisoned cherry might not be the only danger inside his house.
