“Not for the purposes of this conversation.”
Something in her expression almost shifts at that. Not amusement. Recognition, maybe, that I am not going to let her brush this off.
Around us, the breakfast is dissolving into anxious clusters and low voices. No one is eating anymore. Good. Let them all be uncomfortable.
“This is insane,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Who would do something like this?”
A better question than most people here will ask.
I glance toward the lawn, toward Ethan somewhere out of sight, toward the scattered remains of breakfast and the chairs still half pushed back from the tables. “That is what I intend to find out.”
Her hand slips from the table to her side, close to her middle before she catches herself and lets it fall. The movement is small. Most people would miss it.
I don’t.
I take a breath and make myself say only, “Inside.”
This time she nods.
I keep one hand light at the small of her back as I guide her through the terrace doors, not because she needs steering, but because the house is suddenly full of frightened people and I want a point of contact I can account for. She tenses at the touch for half a second, then allows it.
Inside, the cooler air of the hallway wraps around us. The noise is different here. Muffled, running ahead and behind in fragments. A staff member hurries past with a basin. Another with clean towels. Somewhere down the corridor, I hear Maksim giving instructions in that clipped, calm tone that makes everyone else stop flailing and start listening.
Good.
Sienna is standing a few feet away, pale but composed, watching the room with that same alert stillness she gets when something is wrong and she is forcing herself not to be one more problem.
I go to her, but before I can say anything, Maksim steps out of the room again and pulls off one glove.
“She needs a hospital,” he says. His voice is even, but there’s no softness in it. “She’s critical.”
For a moment no one speaks.
I glance past him toward the bed, toward the girl now barely moving, and feel the weight of it settle into the house. Breakfast ruined. Guests shaken. One young woman fighting for her life in a ground-floor bedroom meant for overflow family.
I nod once. “The ambulance is close.”
“It needs to be faster than close.”
“I know.”
Maksim looks as if he wants to say more, then thinks better of it and turns back into the room.
Beside me, Sienna speaks quietly. “It was the champagne.”
I look at her. “What?”
“She drank the champagne,” she says. Her voice is steadier now, because she has something concrete to hold on to. “I saw her have it. Right before Camille’s toast ended.”
A flash of memory. Champagne. The one that I declined moments before she choked on the same. Was that meant for me?
I don’t know that for sure. But if it’s true, then someone here is trying to kill me.
8