Chapter 1 - THE NINTH DAY
“GET OUT!”
The dinner tray hit the wall hard enough to crack a tile.
A bowl broke. Soup ran down the white paint. Two nurses hurried into the hall, leaving Helena Montenegro alone in her chair, shaking with rage.
“No one comes back in here!” she shouted.
From the doorway, Isabela Costa watched Helena grip the arms of the chair. She had worked in the mansion for eight days. Long enough to learn that every slammed door sent a guard reaching for his radio. Long enough to notice that Helena’s dinner always arrived after the nurses changed shifts.
She stepped over the broken dishes.
Helena glared at her. “Did my son send you?”
“No. The kitchen did.”
“Then clean up and leave.”
Isabela pulled out the chair across from her. “Gladly. But first, what did they bring you?”
“Something they keep calling chicken.”
Isabela bent to look at the gray pieces floating in the soup. “That’s a generous name for it.”
Helena’s mouth twitched. She fought the smile and lost.
In the mansion’s basement security room, Dante Montenegro leaned closer to the monitor.
His mother had barely eaten in three weeks. She had refused doctors, slapped a glass from a nurse’s hand, and accused half the household of trying to make her sick. Dante had hired specialists. He had ordered favorite meals from restaurants across São Paulo. Nothing worked.
Onscreen, Isabela took a spoon from the tray and set it beside Helena.
“You don’t have to eat that,” she said. “I wouldn’t.”
“Then why are you sitting there?”
“Because nobody should have to eat dinner alone.”
Helena looked at her for a long moment. Then she picked up the spoon.
Dante stood so quickly his chair rolled into the wall.
Helena took one small bite.
Dante pressed the intercom button. “Who is that woman?”
His head of security, Rafael, checked the personnel file. “Isabela Costa. Hired nine days ago. No family listed.”
On the screen, Helena leaned close to the maid and whispered something.
Isabela’s face changed.
May you like
Dante turned up the audio, but Helena had covered the microphone with her hand.
A second later, Isabela looked straight into the security camera.
