Chapter 4 - The Scent of Betrayal
The family estate was pitch-black when my Uber dropped me off at the foot of the driveway. The heavy mahogany front door was still unlocked, left ajar in the frantic rush when the ambulance had arrived.
I pushed inside. The smell of cold grease, roasted poultry, and dried red wine hung thick in the air like the atmosphere of a tomb. The holiday candles had burned down to lumpy stumps of wax, leaving charred wicks drowning in shallow pools of tallow.
I didn't turn on the overhead chandelier. Instead, I pulled out my phone and switched on the flashlight, sweeping the beam across the carnage.
The table looked like a crime scene. Broken crystal littered the rug around Aunt Clara’s abandoned chair. Julian’s overturned seat lay sprawled on the parquet floor, surrounded by scuff marks where his shoes had kicked in agony.
And there, resting innocently beside his discarded linen napkin, was Julian’s plate.
The half-eaten forkful of stuffing still lay where it had fallen, speckled with dried cranberry glaze and minced herbs.
I pulled a pair of latex cleaning gloves from the utility cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and slipped them on. Returning to the table, I leaned close to Julian’s plate, waving my hand above the food to draw the scent toward my nose without inhaling directly.
Turkey. Sage. Rosemary. The cloying sweetness of brown sugar glaze.
And underneath it all... a faint, bitter aroma. Like crushed peach pits or burnt almonds.
"Cyanide?" I whispered to myself, my stomach clenching.
No. If it were pure cyanide, my EpiPen wouldn't have brought him back from the brink of cardiac arrest. Epinephrine stimulates the adrenergic receptors to reverse severe anaphylaxis and shock; it doesn't neutralize metabolic poisons like cyanide.
Unless... it was a biological toxin. A compound that mimics or hyper-activates an allergic response. Or an extreme, concentrated extract of something he *was* secretly vulnerable to.
I pulled a set of clean plastic sandwich bags from the kitchen pantry. Carefully, using a clean silver spoon, I scooped several ounces of the stuffing, the turkey meat, and the cranberry glaze into separate bags, sealing them tight.
As I turned toward the kitchen trash can to find the packaging from Bianca’s cooking ingredients, the beam of my flashlight caught something strange on the sideboard.
There were two casserole dishes sitting side-by-side on the marble counter.
Both had identical ceramic patterns—white porcelain with gold trim. Both had foil covers loosely tented over them. But when I lifted the foil on the left dish, it contained traditional herb stuffing, moist and fragrant.
I lifted the foil on the right dish. It was virtually identical.
Except tucked underneath the decorative rim of the right dish, barely visible unless you lifted the heavy porcelain container, was a small, circular piece of blue painter’s tape.
Written on the tape in fine black marker was a single letter:
*V.*
A chill colder than the winter air outside washed down the back of my neck.
*V.*
Valerie.
The plate hadn't been made for Julian.
May you like
The plate had been made for me.
***
