Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO CAME FOR THE SCHEDULE
The dining room went completely silent.
Nico did not take his hand off Frank’s shoulder.
He didn't yell.
He didn't throw anything.
He just slowly turned his head and looked at Laurel.
“Your cousin.”
Laurel’s face had lost its color, but she kept her chin high.
“Frank is exaggerating. Marcus is... he’s a security consultant. He was just doing a vulnerability check.”
“A vulnerability check.”
“Yes.”
Nico’s voice dropped.
It wasn't a shout. It was a whisper that carried across the large room, cold enough to freeze water.
“He offered my driver ten thousand dollars to know when I travel without guards, and you call it a vulnerability check?”
Laurel stepped back.
“Nico, you’re misunderstanding.”
“Am I?”
Nico finally let go of Frank.
He walked slowly toward his fiancée.
“My father’s car was damaged tonight. The cameras were turned off. And yesterday, your cousin tried to buy my itinerary.”
He stopped two feet in front of her.
“Who was driving the car, Laurel?”
She swallowed hard.
Her eyes darted to me, then to Frank, looking for an exit she wasn't going to find.
“I was moving it,” she finally whispered.
“Why?”
“I told you, for the photographs—”
“You don’t care about photographs of a 1978 Ford.”
Nico held out his hand.
“Give me your keys.”
Laurel froze.
“What?”
“Your car keys. Now.”
Her hands started to shake.
“Nico, this is humiliating. You’re doing this in front of the maid.”
“Tessa is standing here because she told the truth,” Nico said flatly. “You are standing here because you lied. The keys.”
Laurel reached into her designer purse.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled out a heavy key ring.
Nico took it.
He tossed it to Frank.
“Check her trunk.”
Laurel gasped.
“You can’t do that! That’s my private property!”
“You live in my house,” Nico said. “You eat at my table. And your family is trying to buy my schedule. You have no privacy tonight.”
Frank walked out the service door toward the driveway.
The silence in the dining room was suffocating.
I stood by the sideboard, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I wanted to leave.
I wanted to slip back into the kitchen, finish washing the coffee cups, and take the bus back to my mother’s cramped apartment.
But Nico looked at me.
“Tessa.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When Laurel asked you to move the flowers... did you see her put anything in the Ford?”
Laurel’s head snapped toward me.
Her eyes were wide, desperate, and filled with a silent threat.
If I spoke, she would destroy me.
She would make sure I never worked in Boston again.
But I remembered Frank.
Twenty-seven years of loyalty, and she had tried to throw him away to cover her tracks.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
Laurel closed her eyes.
“What was it?” Nico asked.
“A heavy leather bag. Dark brown. She put it in the backseat of the Ford before she started the engine.”
Nico looked at Laurel.
“Where is the bag now?”
Before Laurel could answer, the service door opened.
Frank walked back in.
He wasn't holding a leather bag.
He was holding a man’s heavy wool coat.
It was dark grey. Expensive.
And the entire right sleeve was soaked in fresh blood.
Frank laid the coat on the dining table.
“I found this in her trunk, sir,” Frank said, his voice completely steady.
Nico stared at the blood.
Then he looked at Laurel.
She was hyperventilating, backing away from the table.
“It isn't what you think,” she sobbed.
Nico reached into the pocket of the bloody coat.
He pulled out a silver money clip.
He wiped the blood off the metal with his thumb and read the engraving.
He didn't look angry anymore.
He looked lethal.
“This belongs to my brother,” Nico said.
He looked up at Laurel.
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TITLE: THE BLOOD ON THE WOOL COAT
