Chapter 6 - THE ARSENIC RECEIPT
The accusation hung in the air like a poisoned cloud.
Everyone stared at Teresa.
The seventy-eight-year-old woman stood in her Sunday dress, leaning slightly on her wooden cane. She didn't flinch. She didn't gasp.
She simply looked at Vanessa with an expression of profound pity.
Luca walked backward, shaking his head.
“No. No, Vanessa. You’re not going to drag my mother into your lies.”
Vanessa thrust the piece of paper toward him.
“Read it yourself, Luca! It’s a receipt from an agricultural supplier. Two pounds of arsenic, shipped directly to this estate under Teresa’s name, three weeks before Catherine died! Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
Luca refused to take the paper.
But Sofia walked over and snatched it from Vanessa’s hand.
Sofia scanned the receipt. Her face tightened.
“It is in Mom’s name,” Sofia whispered.
Vanessa smiled triumphantly. “You see? Catherine found out. She confronted the old hag, and Teresa silenced her! I was in the room that night, yes! But I was trying to save Catherine!”
Elena, the night nurse, suddenly stepped forward, her hands on her hips.
“You truly are a wicked creature, Mrs. Bellini.”
Vanessa sneered. “The evidence is right there!”
“I know it is,” Elena said calmly. “Because I’m the one who bought it.”
The room went dead silent again.
Luca looked at the nurse. “Elena? What are you talking about?”
Elena sighed deeply.
“Three years ago, we had a terrible rat infestation in the old greenhouse behind the estate. The exterminators couldn't get rid of them. Catherine asked me to order a heavy-duty pesticide.”
Elena pointed to the receipt in Sofia’s hand.
“If you read the bottom of that paper, Mrs. Bellini, you’ll see the item listed is Bordeaux Mixture—a common agricultural fungicide and rodenticide that contains trace amounts of arsenic. It was used exclusively in the garden. By the gardeners.”
Vanessa’s triumphant smile faltered.
“No. No, she poisoned her food—”
“Catherine couldn't eat solid food her last month, you idiot,” Elena snapped. “She was on an IV drip, monitored twenty-four hours a day. The only person who had access to her IV was me. And the doctor.”
Sofia crumpled the receipt and threw it at Vanessa’s feet.
“You tried to frame an old woman to save your own skin.”
Vanessa backed up against the dining table again. Her eyes were wild. The calculated composure was completely gone.
“You’re all against me! You’re all lying to protect Catherine's memory! She ruined my life!”
Luca stopped moving.
“What did you just say?”
Vanessa looked at him, her chest heaving. The facade was finally, completely shattered.
“You think I wanted you for your money, Luca? You think I was just a greedy assistant who wanted a rich husband?”
Vanessa let out a broken, hysterical laugh.
“I didn't care about your money! I cared about making Catherine suffer the way she made my sister suffer!”
I felt Mia grip my apron tighter. I stroked her hair, trying to shield her from the madness unfolding.
Luca looked thoroughly confused. “Your sister? You told me you were an only child.”
“I lied!” Vanessa screamed.
She reached into her purse on the dining table and pulled out a worn, faded photograph.
She threw it onto the floor between them.
It landed face up.
It was a picture of two young girls. One was clearly a teenage Vanessa. The other was a younger girl in a wheelchair.
“Her name was Clara,” Vanessa spat, tears finally spilling from her eyes. “Ten years ago, Catherine was driving home from a party. She was drunk. She ran a red light and hit Clara’s car.”
The room was so quiet you could hear the rain starting to hit the windows outside.
“Clara was paralyzed from the neck down,” Vanessa cried. “Her life was over before it began. And what did Catherine get? A slap on the wrist. A quiet settlement paid by your powerful family to keep it out of the papers. She got to marry you, have a beautiful daughter, and live in a mansion.”
Vanessa pointed a shaking finger at Luca.
“While my sister died in a cheap nursing home two years later from an infection.”
Luca stared at the photograph on the floor.
He slowly looked up at Vanessa.
“Catherine didn't drive that night, Vanessa.”
Vanessa froze. “What?”
Luca’s voice was hollow, filled with a decade of regret.
“Catherine wasn't driving the car that hit your sister.”
Vanessa shook her head violently. “The police report said—”
“The police report was a lie,” Sofia interrupted, her voice breaking.
Sofia stepped forward, tears streaming down her face.
She looked at Vanessa, then at the guests, and finally at her brother.
“Catherine wasn't driving,” Sofia sobbed.
May you like
Sofia held out her shaking hands.
“I was.”
