Chapter 5 - The Greenhouse Where the Poison Had Been Growing

Costa Hill stood forty minutes north of the city behind rusted gates and a wall consumed by ivy.

Nia expected Enzo to leave her at the estate.

Instead, he handed her a bullet-resistant vest.

She stared at it.

“No.”

“That was not a question.”

“I am not walking into an abandoned mafia greenhouse dressed like a tactical lamp.”

“It goes under your coat.”

“That does not improve the sentence.”

Enzo’s expression remained stone.

Nia put it on.

The vest was heavier than it looked.

Costa Hill had once been elegant. The main house was boarded but intact, its pale stone exterior streaked by years of rain. Behind it, beyond a terrace choked with weeds, stood a long greenhouse with several broken panes.

And a white gravel path.

Nia looked at Enzo.

He looked at the gravel, then at the mud on the Bellweather van parked beside an old service shed.

No one needed to say anything.

The van was empty.

Inside the greenhouse, moisture fogged the remaining glass.

Rows of neglected tables held dead pots and collapsed trays. But the far end was alive.

Heat lamps glowed above fresh soil.

Irrigation lines ticked softly.

Someone had restored one section and hidden it behind hanging shade cloth.

Nia moved closer.

Purple bells hung from tall green stems.

Foxglove.

Not one plant.

Dozens.

Enzo swore.

A crime-scene photographer employed by Matteo’s lawyer documented everything. Nia refused to touch a leaf until gloves were brought.

Along one bench sat drying racks.

Beside them were paper sacks labeled with harmless names.

GINGER.

MINT.

ECHINACEA.

Nia opened none of them.

“This is where the blend was made,” she said.

Enzo pointed toward a stainless-steel grinder.

Fine green-gray dust coated the inside.

A forensic technician bagged swabs.

Near the back wall, Nia found a clipboard.

Watering schedules.

Fertilizer ratios.

Harvest dates.

Initials appeared beside each entry.

T.R.

Tomas Reed.

The missing guard.

Enzo read the page twice.

“Tomas was tending plants?”

“Or someone wanted it to look that way.”

Nia flipped to an earlier sheet.

The handwriting changed midway through the month.

T.R. became C.C.

Carlo Costa.

“That’s less ambiguous,” she said.

Enzo’s jaw hardened.

Footsteps sounded from the adjoining shed.

Every guard moved.

Enzo pulled Nia behind a concrete support.

A man shouted, “Don’t shoot!”

Tomas Reed stumbled through the doorway with both hands raised.

He looked terrible.

His lower lip was split, one eye swollen, shirt torn at the shoulder.

Enzo crossed the distance and seized him by the collar.

“You helped Carlo leave.”

Tomas shook his head violently.

“My wife.”

“Where is she?”

“He had them. My wife and boy. He showed me a live video.”

Enzo did not release him.

Tomas looked toward Nia.

“He said if I didn’t shut down cameras and drive him out, they’d disappear.”

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know.”

Enzo’s grip loosened.

Tomas sagged against the wall.

“He made me use your token.”

Enzo went still.

“How?”

“You remember the security audit in March? Carlo said the insurance company required backup administrator enrollment. He had me clone authorization onto a secondary key.”

Enzo’s expression darkened.

“You did that without telling me?”

“He had the paperwork.”

“Fake paperwork.”

“I know that now.”

Months of planning.

Nia felt the shape of the plot growing larger.

“Why the greenhouse?” she asked.

Tomas looked at the foxglove.

“I didn’t know what it was. Carlo said he was restoring his aunt’s medicinal garden. He paid me cash to water it because he didn’t want grounds crews on the property.”

“Did you ever see him harvest it?”

“Twice.”

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

Enzo released him.

Tomas rubbed his throat.

“He started taking bags to the estate about four months ago.”

Matteo’s illness had begun ten weeks earlier.

The timeline fit.

A phone vibrated on the stainless table.

Everyone looked.

It was not theirs.

A cheap prepaid phone lay beneath a drying rack.

Enzo motioned for a technician to handle it.

The screen displayed one new message.

YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HIM DIE.

No sender name.

Another message arrived.

THE MAID IS NEXT.

Nia’s stomach dropped.

Enzo stepped between her and the phone as if his body could block words.

Then a third message appeared.

ASK MATTEO WHY HE REALLY FIRED CARLO FROM THE TRUST.

Nia looked at Enzo.

“Fired him from what trust?”

Enzo’s face changed.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

“You know,” she said.

He said nothing.

That was answer enough.

The poison was real. Carlo had grown it here. He had planned the escape. He had threatened Tomas’s family.

But whatever had started this had begun before the tea.

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Before leaving, Nia photographed the greenhouse from every angle on her own phone, including the irrigation labels, drying racks, and white gravel. Hale’s technician promised official copies, but Nia had learned too quickly that evidence could vanish when powerful people controlled the room. She wanted one record that belonged to her.

And Enzo was hiding that part from her.