Chapter 5: The Name on the Paper
I had seen that name before.
Not in person.
On a placard near the entrance to the ballroom, mounted beside a framed photograph — a man in his sixties, silver-haired, standing with the easy confidence of someone who had never once been told no.
The placard read: *In honor of tonight's host, Mr.
Dominic Voss.*
Cecilia's father-in-law.
Oliver's grandfather.
I stood in the staff bathroom with the paper in my hand and tried to make the shape of it fit into something that made sense.
A grandfather ordering harm to his own grandson.
A cake switched at the last minute.
A woman in green who knew enough to warn me but not enough — or not willing enough — to stop it herself.
I folded the paper back up and pushed it into the inside pocket of my uniform jacket.
When I came out of the bathroom, the corridor was no longer empty.
Cecilia Voss was standing against the wall across from the door.
She had changed out of the white gown.
She was wearing a plain grey cardigan now, her arms crossed over her chest, and she looked like a completely different woman — smaller, quieter, the performance stripped away.
"Oliver is with the paramedics," she said.
"They think he'll be fine.
Whatever he ingested was a very small amount."
"I'm glad."
She looked at me directly.
"I owe you an apology."
"You don't have to —"
"I sl@pped you in front of two hundred people." Her voice didn't waver, but something behind her eyes did.
"You were trying to save my son and I sl@pped you.
I do have to."
I nodded once.
"Apology accepted."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Harlan told me he questioned you."
"He did."
"What did he ask?"
"Whether I came here knowing something would happen." I watched her face.
"Did you send him to ask me that?"
"No." The answer was immediate.
"Harlan answers to my father-in-law.
Not to me."
There it was.
I kept my expression neutral.
"I see."
"Do you?" She stepped closer, her voice dropping.
"Because I need to know — and I need you to be honest with me — did someone speak to you before tonight?
Did someone tell you to watch the desserts?"
"No one told me anything," I said.
"I saw the color through the frosting and I reacted."
She studied me for a long moment.
Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to find enough of it.
"The woman in green," she said.
"You spoke to her in the corridor."
"Briefly."
"Her name is Renata.
She was my husband's personal assistant for six years before he died." She paused.
"She disappeared three months after the funeral.
I haven't seen her since.
Until tonight."
The corridor felt colder than it had a moment before.
"Why would she come back now?" I asked.
Cecilia's eyes dropped to my jacket pocket.
Not for long.
Just a fraction of a second.
But long enough.
"I think," she said carefully, "that she came back because something was about to happen that she couldn't stop from a distance." She lifted her eyes back to mine.
"And I think she may have given you something she didn't want Harlan to find."
I didn't move.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because Harlan is going to search you before you leave this building," she said.
"And whatever she gave you — if it names who I think it names — it will disappear.
And so, very likely, will you."
The paper in my pocket felt like it was burning through the fabric.
"What do you suggest?" I asked.
Cecilia reached into the pocket of her cardigan and held out her hand.
In her palm was a small white card with a phone number handwritten on the back.
"Give me the paper," she said quietly.
"And take this.
Call that number when you're outside.
The person who answers will know what to do with it."
I looked at the card.
I looked at her.
"How do I know," I said, "that you're not the one who switched the cake?"
Her face didn't collapse.
It just went very still.
"You don't," she said.
May you like
"But my son is in that ambulance.
And I am asking you to help me find out who put him there."
