Chapter 1 - DON’T DRINK IT
“DON’T DRINK THAT!”
The scream cut through the Sterling family’s anniversary dinner half a second before Charles Sterling’s lips touched the wineglass.
Twenty-six people froze.
Forks stopped in midair. A violinist dragged his bow across one ugly note. Charles lowered the glass slowly and stared across the private dining room of Bellamy House.
The young waitress who had shouted stood ten feet away, white-faced and shaking.
Her name tag read: MAYA.
Eleanor Sterling shot out of her chair.
“Sir, please don’t taste it!” Maya yelled.
“Do not embarrass this family!” Eleanor snapped. She grabbed Maya’s wrist as the waitress reached for Charles’s glass. “Get your hands off his wine!”
Maya twisted free.
Charles rose.
“What is the meaning of this?” His voice was low, the same voice that had terrified employees, lawyers, bankers, and competitors for thirty years. “Why are you touching my glass?”
“Because somebody put something in it.”
A gasp ran down the table.
Eleanor’s face changed for only an instant.
Maya saw it.
Fear.
Not outrage.
Fear.
Then it vanished behind a perfect social smile.
“This girl is obviously unstable,” Eleanor said. “Someone call her manager.”
Maya pulled a phone from her apron.
“No. Mr. Sterling, look at this screen right now.”
“Don’t look at that!” Eleanor shouted.
Too quickly.
Too loudly.
Everyone turned toward her.
Maya stepped beside Charles and hit PLAY.
The security footage was grainy but clear enough.
A woman entered the restaurant pantry thirty-seven minutes earlier.
Same pearl earrings.
Same silver dress.
Same sleek blond hair pinned behind her neck.
Eleanor.
On the video, she looked over both shoulders, removed a small bottle from her purse, and bent over a decanter.
Maya paused the footage.
“She marked that decanter with your name.”
Charles stared at his wife.
“Eleanor,” he whispered. “Is that you?”
“It’s fake.”
Her answer came instantly.
“You manipulated that footage!” Eleanor pointed at Maya. “She did this! I don’t know why, but she’s trying to destroy us!”
Maya’s heart pounded so violently she could hear it.
“The poison is still in your purse, Eleanor.”
Silence.
Charles looked at Eleanor’s black clutch sitting beside her plate.
Then Eleanor grabbed it.
Not slowly.
Not casually.
She grabbed it and ran.
“Stop her!” Charles roared.
Two security officers rushed toward the door.
Eleanor kicked off one heel and sprinted through the dining room.
A guest screamed as she slammed into a table.
Glass exploded against marble.
Maya chased her.
“Mrs. Sterling!”
Eleanor reached the service hallway, shoved a busboy aside, and disappeared through the kitchen doors.
Charles followed, furious and pale.
“Security! Arrest her!”
Maya pushed into the kitchen—
And stopped.
The rear exit stood wide open.
Eleanor was gone.
One of the guards looked outside.
“No sign of her.”
Charles gripped the counter.
Maya looked down.
A black purse lay on the floor.
Eleanor had dropped it.
Charles picked it up.
Inside was lipstick.
A wallet.
Car keys.
And a tiny bottle wrapped in a napkin.
Charles stared at it.
Then Maya noticed something else.
A folded note had been tucked beneath the bottle.
Charles opened it.
Three handwritten words were written across the page.
MAYA DID IT.
May you like
He slowly raised his eyes to her.
And suddenly the entire room looked at the waitress.
