Chapter 2 - The Man Who Ordered the Lilies

Aleandro Caruso was still holding my wrist when the doctor arrived.

He had risen from his own coffin, frightened a ballroom full of powerful people, and accused someone of arranging his burial. Yet the first thing the doctor did was tell him to lie down.

"I am not lying down until she can leave," I said.

Three men turned toward me.

Aleandro looked up. For a second, his expression suggested that nobody had spoken to him that way in years.

"You heard my order," he said.

"I heard it. I don't agree to being locked inside a house because I checked your pulse."

A muscle moved in his jaw. Then his grip loosened.

"Marco. She's not to be touched. She stays for questions, and she receives whatever she needs."

"I need to go home."

"And I need to know why there was a coffin waiting for me." His voice cracked on the last word. He glanced down at the satin beneath him as though suddenly remembering where he sat.

The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Bell. His gray suit was expensive and his hands surprisingly unsteady. He took a blood-pressure cuff from a leather bag, then asked the most powerful man in the room to move onto a couch.

Aleandro tried to stand. His knees buckled.

Marco caught him before he fell. For one frightening moment his eyes lost focus, and I saw the shallow breathing that had made me reach inside the casket.

"He needs a hospital," I said.

"An ambulance has been called," Marco answered. "The estate doctor is here until then."

Dr. Bell lifted his eyes sharply. "I can manage him on site."

"You thought he was dead," I said.

The room went still again.

The doctor's pale lips tightened. "His apparent death was confirmed by several observations."

"Then your observations were wrong."

Aleandro gave a rough, astonished sound that might have been a laugh. Marco did not smile.

The silver-haired man who had ordered me to straighten the lilies stood near the doorway. I recognized the close-fitting black gloves he had worn when he pointed me toward the coffin. His name was Felix Voss, someone called him. He had supervised the estate for decades.

When he realized I was looking at him, he lowered his gaze.

"That man sent me to the casket," I told Marco.

Felix looked stricken.

"I asked Miss Sterling to correct the flowers," he said. "Nothing more."

"Why me? There were other servers standing right beside you."

"You were nearest."

He wasn't telling the truth. I remembered walking across the ballroom from the opposite wall, carrying a tray. Felix had crossed my path deliberately and given instructions before I could pass.

I started to explain, but Aleandro spoke first.

"Ask Felix where he was when I collapsed."

A different kind of silence followed.

"In the west office, sir," Felix said. "I came when the staff summoned me."

"And who summoned the physician?"

"Your cousin Matteo."

Aleandro stared at him. The name seemed to cost him more energy than standing up.

I had seen Matteo Caruso during the reception. He had stood beside the photograph of his cousin, greeting guests with a solemnity that looked practiced. I remembered the way he corrected a woman who referred to Aleandro's business as belonging to the Caruso family. He called it the Caruso organization, as if the distinction mattered.

"Where is Matteo now?" Aleandro asked.

Marco checked his phone. "Still on the grounds. He requested permission to leave through the north gate."

"Refuse it."

"I already did."

A siren rose beyond the windows.

The sound made the room feel real again. A person who had almost been buried was going to a hospital. A doctor would have to explain his mistake. And I would finally go home.

But then Felix stepped closer and whispered something to Marco. I heard only two words.

"The lilies."

Marco's face changed.

"Emma," he said, "did you move anything besides the flowers?"

"No. I put down my tray. I touched his neck. That's all."

"Was there a card in the arrangement?"

I frowned. Most of the bouquets carried folded notes. I had noticed a narrow ivory envelope caught beneath the stems of the lilies nearest Aleandro's shoulder. I had not touched it.

"There was an envelope," I said.

Felix closed his eyes.

Marco crossed to the casket, slid his hand under the flowers and withdrew it. Empty.

"Someone took it," he said.

Dr. Bell shut his bag with a loud metallic click. "We should concentrate on the patient's recovery, not flowers."

Aleandro watched him. "You signed my death certificate."

"I was given medical information consistent with cardiac arrest."

"You examined me?"

"Yes."

"Then tell me the time."

Dr. Bell hesitated.

"I would need my notes."

The ambulance crew entered before Aleandro could answer. They brought a stretcher, oxygen, and the kind of calm that nobody inside the ballroom possessed. One paramedic glanced at the open coffin and then looked carefully away.

As they prepared to move him, Aleandro turned to me.

"I was wrong to threaten you," he said, softly enough that only I could hear. "But the person who put me in that coffin may already know your name."

I hated that he had a point.

He had demanded my full name in front of hundreds of people. Whoever was responsible had heard it, too.

"That doesn't give you ownership of my life," I told him.

"No," he said. "It doesn't."

Marco offered me his phone so I could call someone. I called my supervisor and explained that my shift had turned into a police matter. She seemed more upset about the silver serving tray than the man who had awakened at his funeral.

Then I asked Marco to summon the police. He looked at Aleandro, who gave the smallest nod.

Outside the ballroom, guests whispered behind locked doors, and the night wind pressed against the tall windows.

I followed the ambulance crew only as far as the estate entrance. My own feet were still blistered. My shift money remained in a sealed envelope at the catering desk. I wanted my apartment, hot water, and silence.

Marco returned carrying my wages and a card bearing the number of a detective who had been called to the scene.

"A driver can take you home," he said. "Or a patrol officer can. Your choice."

"The officer."

He accepted the answer without argument.

At the entrance, Felix approached one final time. His eyes were wet, but whether from fear or remorse I could not tell.

"You should never have needed to look beneath those flowers," he said.

"Then why did you send me there?"

He stared at the open front doors, at the ambulance's fading lights, and at the guards who pretended not to listen.

"Because," he said, "I was afraid they would close the casket before I found someone brave enough to look."

Before I could ask who he meant by they, a man inside the house called Felix's name.

He stepped back as though struck.

And I understood something that made the cold night air feel suddenly thin.

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The silver-haired man had suspected Aleandro was alive before I ever touched his neck.

He had sent me toward the coffin because he was too frightened to check it himself.