Chapter 3 - A CONVERSATION TWO YEARS LATE
Declan stopped in the kitchen doorway. Tessa kept moving, as he had told her, toward the service exit. He heard its lock turn behind her.
Camille appeared at the other end of the hall.
For one second, he remembered their last ordinary morning together. She had stood by the front door in his coat because hers was at the cleaner’s. She had kissed him and said she would be home for dinner.
Now she stood in the same hall, holding the envelope from his safe.
“Tell me how long,” he said.
Camille’s face changed. She looked toward Aris, who hovered behind her.
“Let us talk alone,” she told him.
Aris hesitated, then withdrew to the west wing.
Camille took a step closer. “I woke up eight months after the explosion.”
Declan calculated the time without meaning to. Sixteen months of visits. Sixteen months of doctors telling him to be patient, then urging him to accept that she would never recover.
“You heard me,” he said.
“Sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She gripped the envelope. “Because I found out what caused the explosion.”
“The Morettis.”
“That’s what someone wanted you to believe.”
Declan looked at the envelope. “Who?”
Camille’s eyes shifted toward the security camera above the kitchen arch.
Declan knew that look. It meant someone was listening.
He went to the wall panel and shut off the camera feed. “Answer me.”
“The bomb was built for your car,” she said. “But I was told you knew the switch had been made.”
“By whom?”
A door slammed somewhere below them.
Camille stiffened. Declan heard men talking in the garage. His own security team used the front entrance when he was home.
“I need what’s in the lower compartment,” she said quickly. “I can prove who gave the order.”
“Then give me the envelope.”
She held it against her chest. “Not until I know which side you’re on.”
Declan stared at her. “You watched me sit beside you every night.”
“I know.”
May you like
The garage door opened. Declan drew his gun.
A man called up the stairs, “Dr. Aris? We found the maid.”
