Chapter 2 - THE ELEVEN MISSING MINUTES
I canceled the gala.
That was my first decision.
My second was quieter.
Nobody outside the estate would know yet.
Publicly, the Romano Foundation winter gala remained scheduled for Friday.
Invitations active.
Catering confirmed.
Musicians arriving.
Politicians expecting photographs.
Privately, the event no longer existed.
Instead, it became bait.
Damian stared at me across the security office.
“You're leaving the event on the calendar.”
“Yes.”
“And bringing nobody here?”
“Correct.”
“If someone is planning something—”
“They continue planning.”
He nodded slowly.
Then:
“You think Owen is involved.”
“I think Owen knows something.”
Difference.
I had spent enough of my life watching frightened men confess to things they did not do simply because someone more powerful had already decided the answer.
Evidence first.
Even if that philosophy had reached me later than it should have.
Nero slept in the laundry sitting room.
Dr. Levin wanted him somewhere quiet.
Elsie refused to leave him.
Sienna tried.
“Sweetheart, Mr. Nero needs rest.”
“Nero scared.”
“He’s okay now.”
“No.”
Elsie planted herself beside his blanket.
“Nero scared.”
Nero opened one eye.
Dr. Levin sighed.
“She can stay twenty minutes.”
It became an hour.
Sienna apologized repeatedly.
I told her to stop.
At noon, I reviewed the Tuesday camera failure.
Exactly eleven minutes.
8:14 a.m. to 8:25.
Only four cameras were affected.
Laundry corridor.
Kennel entrance.
East service staircase.
Basement delivery hall.
Not a system interruption.
A corridor.
Someone had created a path through my estate without surveillance.
“Who has authority to isolate feeds like this?”
I asked.
Damian answered:
“Me.”
“Owen for maintenance.”
“Two IT technicians.”
“Anyone else?”
“My deputy.”
Name:
Victor Kane.
Thirty-six.
Former military police.
Worked for me seven years.
I trusted him.
That sentence suddenly sounded stupid.
“Where is Victor?”
“South perimeter.”
“Bring him.”
Victor entered ten minutes later.
Calm.
Confused.
He examined the logs.
“I didn't authorize this.”
“Could your credentials have?”
“Yes.”
“Were they used?”
Damian checked.
“No.”
Owen’s credentials had.
Victor leaned back.
“Then why am I here?”
“Because someone who understood the security architecture knew exactly which feeds mattered.”
His eyes hardened.
“Owen knows maintenance.”
“Not patrol timing.”
Victor glanced toward Damian.
There.
Small.
Interesting.
Damian noticed.
“What?”
Victor hesitated.
Then:
“Owen complained last month that Nero’s route had changed.”
“Who told him?”
“No idea.”
I did.
Nero’s patrol had changed after he developed arthritis in his left hip.
Only security and veterinary staff knew.
Owen apparently did too.
We questioned employees individually.
Not mafia interrogation.
No basement.
No broken fingers.
Lawyers would have been proud.
The laundry supervisor remembered Owen entering the corridor Tuesday.
He claimed a steam pipe was leaking.
No pipe repair had been requested.
A gardener saw him leave carrying a black tool case.
Elsie’s “silver pen” could have been an injector.
Then Dr. Levin found another clue.
Nero’s vaccination record had been accessed digitally six times in two weeks.
Not by Dr. Levin.
By an estate tablet assigned to the security office.
Damian stared.
“Mine?”
“No.”
Victor’s.
Victor went still.
“I haven't opened a veterinary file in my life.”
Logs showed the tablet physically connected from his office.
But Tuesday at that time, Victor was recorded entering a Cook County courthouse with two attorneys.
Verified.
His device remained behind.
Someone used it.
Again.
Access borrowed from people who looked responsible.
By late afternoon, we learned Gavin Shaw—the handler Nero attacked—had not disappeared.
He had gone to an urgent-care clinic.
Police interviewed him at my attorney’s request.
His story changed everything.
Gavin said he had been hired three weeks earlier.
Not by me.
Not by Damian.
The contract came from a Romano Estate vendor account.
Signed electronically by Victor Kane.
Victor stared at me.
“Not mine.”
“Keep listening.”
Gavin had been instructed that Nero had developed “age-related aggression.”
He was told to use a prescribed calming injection before intensive handling.
The medication came preloaded in silver auto-injectors.
Silver pen.
Gavin used one Tuesday.
Nero became disoriented.
Today he tried again.
Nero attacked before the injection landed properly.
The needle broke.
“Who gave him the injectors?”
Damian asked.
Police had asked too.
Gavin described:
Older white male.
Late fifties.
Gray hair.
Estate staff jacket.
Owen Gray.
There.
Closer.
“What did Owen say the medication was?”
Dr. Levin asked.
A standard veterinary sedative.
Except the actual compound in Nero's blood did not match what Gavin was told.
Someone had lied to Gavin too.
Then investigators searched Owen’s garage apartment.
No Owen.
But hidden above a ceiling panel:
Cash.
A second phone.
Disposable visitor badges.
A printed map of the estate.
One route highlighted.
From the east catering entrance through the service hall to the central conservatory.
My gala speech location.
The highlighted route avoided every camera affected during Tuesday’s eleven-minute blackout.
At the bottom of the map:
11:40 PM
My speech was scheduled at 11:40.
I stared.
Victor whispered:
“They were mapping an approach.”
“Yes.”
Damian asked:
“For an assassin?”
“Maybe.”
Then we found the photograph.
Taped behind the map.
Nero.
Taken from inside the estate.
Across his image someone had written:
REMOVE BEFORE FRIDAY.
Victor swore.
Damian looked ready to kill someone.
I understood.
Then my attorney called.
Owen Gray had just walked into a Chicago police station.
Voluntarily.
Alive.
He was asking for protective custody.
And he was insisting on one condition before speaking.
He would talk only to Sienna Brooks.
May you like
My maid.
Elsie’s mother.
