A woman in a pale blue dress knelt at my other side. I recognized her as Dr. Lena Shah, a guest who had once treated Gabriel after a car accident. She asked my name, the date, and whether I could feel my toes. I answered, fighting dizziness. She pressed clean table linen against my arm and told me the ambulance was close.
Bianca backed toward the double doors.
“Don’t leave,” Daniel said.
“You can’t hold me here.”
“Then don’t make me ask you twice to give a statement when the police arrive.”
Adrian held out his hand to her. “Come on, darling.”
Gabriel said, “I won’t stop either of you from leaving. But the document stays, the witnesses stay available, and every camera recording from the carriage house is being preserved.”
Bianca’s head snapped toward him. “The carriage house cameras aren’t working.”
I stared at her.
Neither Gabriel nor Daniel had mentioned a camera failure.
Gabriel noticed. “How do you know that?”
Bianca swallowed. “I meant—someone told me.”
“Who?”
Adrian caught her elbow. “You can talk to lawyers later.”
They reached the doorway just as the front hall filled with the approaching sounds of emergency workers. Adrian paused, looking back at the shattered portrait.
“You should check what else came inside that frame,” he said.
Then he walked away with Bianca, leaving her diamond necklace shining under the lights like a chain made of ice.
I couldn’t follow him with my eyes. The ceiling kept sliding in and out of focus. Dr. Shah touched my shoulder and reminded me to breathe slowly.
Gabriel held the marriage certificate carefully by its edges. “Why hide this in the frame, Olivia?”
“Because she searched my apron,” I whispered. “And my pockets. I thought she wouldn’t look where she told me to put it.”
His face tightened. “She ordered you to move that thing after hurting you?”
I nodded.
“You could have been killed.”
“I needed you to see it.”
He looked as though he might say something angry, then changed his mind. “You should never have had to risk yourself to be believed.”
I didn’t know what to do with that sentence.
The paramedics arrived. They cut away the cloth wrapped around my arm and eased a collar around my neck until they could examine my injuries. As they lifted me onto the stretcher, the gold frame creaked under Daniel’s hands.
“Boss,” he said.
Gabriel turned.
Daniel had lifted away a strip of cracked backing. Behind the portrait, set into a narrow recess in the wood, was a black metal cartridge no longer than a lipstick tube. It had been taped underneath the canvas, invisible from the front.
Adrian’s last remark echoed in my head.
“What is that?” Gabriel asked.
Daniel didn’t touch it with bare fingers. “I don’t know. The restoration company didn’t list any equipment in the frame.”
A tiny green indicator blinked once.
Then again.
Gabriel looked toward the front door through which Adrian had vanished. “Have an evidence technician document it. Nobody plugs it into anything.”
A paramedic started wheeling me out. I saw the dining room one last time: abandoned chairs, spilled wine, white roses drooping from silver vases, and a smiling painted couple who no longer seemed to know each other.
At the ambulance doors, Gabriel came beside me.
“My father,” I said urgently. “Robert Hayes. Please don’t let Bianca call him. He has a heart condition, and he’s alone tonight.”
Gabriel nodded to Daniel. “Have someone check on him. Ask first. Don’t frighten him.”
I caught Gabriel’s cuff with my good hand. “Mr. Vescari, I know what people say about you. I know what people expect you’ll do.”
His eyes met mine.
“But if you hurt them,” I whispered, “they’ll make this about revenge. They’ll forget what she did. Please don’t let them do that.”
The paramedic waited without interrupting.
Gabriel held my gaze. “They won’t get to erase you. Not with revenge, and not with money.”
He stepped back so they could close the doors.
Pendant qu’ils ajustaient les sangles, je me suis souvenue de cet après-midi dans la buanderie du manoir, lorsque Bianca avait remarqué pour la première fois la façon dont je la regardais. Elle se plaignait que la table n’était pas dressée. Je m’étais excusée et avais tout remis en place pendant qu’elle examinait son reflet dans une armoire à miroirs.
« Tu penses parfois à partir ? » m’avait-elle demandé sans me regarder.
«Parfois, madame.»
« Alors, souvenez-vous à quel point il est facile pour quelqu’un sans relations de se retrouver sans rien. »
J’avais pris cela pour une remarque cruelle, pas pour une promesse. Maintenant, faisant abstraction du cadre brisé, je comprenais qu’elle avait testé à quel point il lui suffisait de peu pour me contrôler.
