Chapter 2 - THE VIAL WAS EMPTY
Celeste spent the next forty seconds betraying herself.
That was exactly what Evelyn needed.
The vial contained nothing.
It never had.
Evelyn had found it three days earlier in the upstairs conservatory after Celeste left the house.
Small.
Unlabeled.
Empty.
Evelyn did not know what had been in it.
She did know one thing:
Celeste panicked when she saw it.
And panic makes arrogant people narrate their own crimes.
“What did you put in my tea?” Celeste demanded.
Evelyn said nothing.
Celeste grabbed the edge of the table.
Her breathing accelerated.
“You switched them?”
Still nothing.
“You couldn’t have. I watched you.”
Evelyn’s mind sharpened despite the fog inside her body.
Watched you.
That mattered.
Celeste kept talking.
“You drank first.”
Another mistake.
Evelyn had not asked whether Celeste poisoned her.
Celeste was answering a question no one had spoken.
Evelyn forced herself to stay conscious.
“What was in mine?”
Celeste froze.
There.
A tiny pause.
Then:
“You’re delirious.”
Evelyn smiled weakly.
“Am I?”
Celeste looked toward the door.
Then toward the broken teacup.
Then toward the empty vial in her palm.
Fear was replacing triumph.
Good.
Because Evelyn needed time.
Unknown to Celeste, the Ashcroft mansion’s security system had one feature the family almost never used.
Medical emergency voice detection.
Installed after Evelyn’s grandfather collapsed alone in the library seven years earlier.
Certain distress phrases could trigger an alert if the system heard them near enabled rooms.
Evelyn had screamed help twice.
She did not know whether the system still worked.
But she knew Celeste thought nobody was coming.
That gave her one advantage.
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Celeste believed she had time.
And people who believe they have time often keep talking.
