Chapter 9 - THE NAME ON THE APPLICATION
Maya called Harris from the hallway.
By morning, detectives had obtained the estate’s hiring records.
Her application had been flagged before her first interview.
A note appeared in the margin.
Bennett connection confirmed.
Proceed.
Below it were instructions to assign her to Luca’s room and keep her away from the company archive.
“They wanted to watch you,” Harris said.
Maya sat very still.
After Daniel died, she had kept asking questions.
She had called former employees.
Requested inspection reports.
Left messages with attorneys who never called back.
Then a staffing agency had contacted her about a unusually well-paid private care position.
She had thought she was lucky.
Luca listened from his bed.
“Why put her near me?”
Harris didn’t answer immediately.
Evelyn did.
“Because if their medication arrangement was ever discovered, an angry relative with access to you would make a convenient suspect.”
Maya remembered the vials in her locker.
The unlocked door.
Vivienne insisting she prepare Luca’s evening water.
Six weeks of small instructions suddenly rearranged themselves.
Luca looked sick.
“They planned this.”
“Possibly,” Harris said.
“We prove what we can.”
Maya stood too quickly.
“I need air.”
She made it to the stairwell before her breathing broke.
The door opened behind her.
Luca sat in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse.
“I asked her to bring me,” he said.
Maya wiped her face.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
“You shouldn’t have to hide in a stairwell.”
The nurse stepped back toward the door.
Maya stared at the concrete floor.
“I thought I was finally doing something for him.”
“You were.”
“I walked straight into it.”
“So did I.
For twelve years.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No.
But you don’t get to call yourself stupid in front of me.
It makes my situation awkward.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
Then she cried harder.
Luca waited.
When she could breathe again, he said, “Tell me what you still have.”
“About Daniel?”
“Everything.”
There were emails.
Photographs.
A voicemail Daniel had left the night before the collapse.
Maya had listened to it hundreds of times.
My boss says the order came from upstairs.
If anything happens, check the load sheets.
Luca asked her to play it again.
Halfway through, he raised his hand.
In the background, another man was speaking.
Luca knew that voice.
“That’s Adrian.”
Then the voice on the recording said something Maya had never been able to make out.
May you like
This time, Luca did.
“Your signature is already on it.”
