Chapter 3: What the Boy Swallowed
The woman in white moved first.
She turned from us without a word and walked back toward the ballroom, her gown trailing behind her across the marble like something being pulled underwater.
I stood frozen for one second, then ran after her.
The ballroom had changed.
The music had stopped.
Guests were clustered near the center of the room, and through the gaps between them I could see the boy sitting on the floor, his back against one of the round tables, his small hand pressed against his stomach.
"Oliver." The woman in white dropped to her knees in front of him.
"Oliver, look at me."
"My tummy hurts, Mama."
She turned his face toward hers and examined his eyes.
Her hands were steady.
Her voice was steady.
That steadiness frightened me more than tears would have.
"Did you eat anything?" she asked him.
"Anything at all before I stopped you?"
"I licked the spoon," he said.
"Before she knocked it."
Every head in the room turned toward me.
I stepped forward.
"We need to call an ambulance.
Right now.
Whatever was in that cake — he may have ingested a small amount."
"You've done enough," someone behind me said.
I turned.
A man in a dark suit had appeared near the dessert table.
He was looking at me the way people look at something they intend to remove.
"Security has been called.
I suggest you stay where you are."
"Her son may have been p0isoned," I said.
"That is not a suggestion I'm going to follow."
I pulled out my phone and dialed before he could respond.
While I was on with the operator, I watched the woman in white from across the room.
She had gathered Oliver into her arms and was rocking him slightly, her chin resting on the top of his head.
She looked up once and found me watching her.
Something crossed her face — not gratitude, not anger.
Something older than both.
The woman in green appeared at my elbow.
"You shouldn't have called," she said quietly.
"A child licked a p0isoned spoon.
I absolutely should have called."
"You don't understand what an ambulance means in this room." She glanced toward the man in the dark suit, who was now speaking into his own phone with his back to us.
"These people do not want official attention tonight.
There are guests here who cannot afford to have their names in any report."
"That's not my problem."
"It will be," she said.
"The moment that ambulance arrives, you become part of this.
And the person who switched that cake will make sure you look like the one who brought it in."
I stared at her.
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a warning." She pressed something into my hand — a folded piece of paper, small and tight.
"Don't open that here.
And don't tell her I gave it to you."
Before I could ask who she meant, the man in the dark suit was beside us.
"Miss," he said to me, "I need you to come with me."
The woman in green stepped back.
She didn't look at me again.
I closed my fingers around the paper.
"Where?" I asked.
May you like
"Somewhere quieter," he said.
And he smiled in a way that had nothing friendly in it.
