Chapter 8 - The Eye-Tracking Board
By one o'clock that afternoon, the Marquetti mansion was filled with dark suits, forensic technicians, and plainclothes detectives from the State Police Major Crimes Division.
The back staircase had been cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. Technicians in white Tyvek suits were taking high-resolution photographs of the nineteenth step, dusting the iron handrail for latent fingerprints, and scraping samples of the cold-pressed olive oil into glass vials.
Victoria and Julian had been escorted down the long, winding driveway in the back of two separate unmarked police cruisers. Her attorneys had been permitted to leave only after surrendering their phones and signing formal witness statements regarding the documents found on the library desk.
I sat in the formal morning room on the first floor, my feet propped on a velvet ottoman, while a police paramedic checked the pulse in my left fingers.
Gideon stepped into the room, holding two clean glass mugs of black coffee. He handed one to me, his knuckles grazing my uninjured right hand as I took the warm ceramic.
“The state prosecutor just called,” Gideon said, sitting in the armchair across from me. “They’re charging Victoria with attempted first-degree murder, solicitation to commit a felony, and corporate fraud.”
“And the driver?” I asked, taking a sip of the bitter, hot coffee.
“Julian signed a full confession forty minutes ago,” Gideon replied, leaning his head back against the leather cushion and closing his eyes. “He gave them the receipt for the cyanide, the text messages from Victoria’s secondary phone, and the administrative log-in details he used to wipe the camera server.”
I looked out the high arched windows at the lake. The rain had finally stopped, replaced by a pale, weak November sunlight that cut through the thinning fog, illuminating the white crests of the waves crashing against the stone sea wall.
“You knew before today, didn't you?” I asked softly.
Gideon opened his eyes, looking at me through the steam rising from his mug. “I knew she was liquidating the offshore accounts. I knew she was paying off the union representatives to force a restructuring of the shipping board. But I didn't think she would try to kill our father. I thought... I thought she still had some small thread of humanity left.”
“Greed distorts people, Mr. Marquetti,” I said. “Especially when they’ve spent their whole lives believing they’re entitled to everything around them.”
“Gideon,” he corrected softly.
I paused, my coffee cup hovering near my lips. “What?”
“My name is Gideon,” he said, looking straight into my eyes with an intensity that made my chest tighten slightly beneath my medical bandages. “You’ve saved my father’s life, you’ve broken your arm on my stairs, and you’ve exposed the corruption in my household. You don't need to call me Mr. Marquetti anymore.”
May you like
Before I could answer, Walter stepped into the morning room, holding a light wooden frame equipped with a high-definition digital screen and a small infrared sensor along the bottom rail.
“Mr. Gideon,” Walter said, his voice trembling with a quiet, suppressed emotion. “Senior Antonio wants to speak with both of you in the master suite.”
