Chapter 9 - The Poisoned Decanter
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The penthouse occupied the entire seventieth floor, surrounded on four sides by floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass that looked out over the snowy, diamond-lit skyline of Chicago and the black expanse of Lake Michigan. The interior was all dark charcoal stone, warm cedar paneling, and low, recessed lighting.
As soon as the elevator doors opened into the living area, Roman set Clara’s suitcase down by the hallway and stepped over to the bar area, pulling a secure satellite phone from his jacket.
Lucian didn't let go of Clara’s hand until he had guided her onto the deep leather sofa in front of the roaring linear fireplace. He knelt down in front of her, unbuckled her damp ankle boots, and slipped them off her feet, tucking the warm fur throw blanket over her legs with a domestic gentleness that contrasted shockingly with the bloodstain still drying on his white shirt cuff.
"Boss," Roman called out quietly, holding the encrypted phone toward him. "It’s Miller at the Lake Forest house. He’s inside the third-floor library with the forensic kit."
Lucian stood up, unbuttoning his charcoal waistcoat as he took the phone and placed it on speaker on the black marble coffee table.
"Talk to me, Miller," Lucian said.
"We ran the reagent swab on the crystal Macallan decanter on your desk tray, Mr. Sterling," the chemist’s tense voice crackled through the speaker. "The scotch wasn't poisoned yet—Miss Hayes clearly didn't touch it at three o'clock. However, we found a fresh jimmy mark on the exterior balcony lock leading into the library from the east roof."
Clara’s hand flew to her throat on the sofa. Her eyes locked with Lucian’s.
"Wait a second, Boss," Miller’s voice dropped to a whisper over the line. "We tested the crystal tumbler sitting upside down beside the decanter. Someone coated the inside rim of the glass itself with concentrated colorless liquid aconite after Miss Hayes left the room at two-thirty. One sip from that glass would have caused total cardiac arrest within four minutes, mimicking a massive heart attack."
A chill colder than the winter wind swept through the penthouse.
"Victor didn't even trust me to do it," Clara whispered, horrified. "When I refused him in the conservatory, he must have had someone already inside the house coat your glass while I was packing my suitcase—and then he sent me away on the train so it would look like the guilty housekeeper poisoned you and fled!"
"Brilliant," Lucian murmured, though his silver-gray eyes were burning with a terrifying, glacial light. "The housekeeper vanishes at five-fifteen with her entire room stripped bare. At nine o'clock, I drink my nightly scotch and drop dead of heart failure on the library rug. And by nine-thirty, Victor Halstead steps forward as my grieving consigliere, produces the bank records showing Clara Hayes was a hired assassin, and takes control of the Sterling syndicate without firing a single shot."
"What are your orders at the estate, Boss?" Miller asked over the speaker. "Victor just called the main gatehouse asking why your personal phone went straight to voicemail after dinner."
Lucian looked at his watch: 9:12 PM.
A slow, predatory smile curved across Lucian’s lips. It was the expression of a wolf who had just watched the hunter step straight into his own iron bear trap.
"Turn on all the emergency lights in the courtyard," Lucian instructed smoothly. "Have two of our private ambulances pull up to the front steps of the estate with their sirens off but the beacons flashing. Then have the kitchen maid call Victor’s cell phone in hysterics and tell him I just collapsed on the library floor clutching my chest and I’m being rushed to our private surgical clinic in Streeterville in a coma."
Roman let out a low, appreciative whistle by the bar. "If Victor thinks you survived the dose and are lying unconscious in a clinic bed—"
"He'll come out of the shadows before dawn to finish the job himself," Lucian finished coldly, "and to call an emergency meeting of the five capos to claim the chair while my body is still warm."
"Understood, Mr. Sterling. Doing it right now," Miller replied before the line clicked dead.
Lucian turned to Roman. "Take six men and set up the perimeter around the Streeterville clinic, then lock down the main boardroom at the Lake Forest estate for tomorrow morning. Leave two guards in the lobby downstairs. Nobody comes up to the seventieth floor tonight unless the building is on fire."
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"You got it, Boss," Roman said, nodding respectfully toward Clara before stepping back into the private elevator.
As the brass doors slid shut, leaving the sprawling penthouse in sudden, intimate quiet, Clara realized she was completely alone with Lucian Sterling.
