Chapter 2 - The East Wing
We returned to the Sterling Estate at four in the afternoon. The sky above the Virginia hills had turned a bruised, heavy purple, promising an early autumn rain.
The estate itself was an imposing three-story Georgian mansion of deep red brick, white limestone pillars, and slate roofing, surrounded by two hundred acres of manicured lawn, forest, and private stables. It was the kind of wealth that didn't scream; it simply endured, quiet and absolute.
Holloway, the elderly head butler whose family had served the Sterlings for two generations, met us in the grand foyer. He held a small, sealed glass jar lined with a hazard label.
"Mr. Sterling," Holloway said, bowing his head slightly. "The sample from the dish has been secured as requested. I have locked it in the wall safe inside your study."
"And the security footage?" Arthur asked, handing his coat to a junior footman.
"There is a complication, sir," Holloway replied nervously. "The camera covering the south windows underwent a scheduled firmware update between six and eight this morning. The feed from that specific angle is blank."
Madeline stepped past me, her high heels clicking rhythmically against the checkered marble floor. "You see? It was just a technical glitch, Arthur. The staff was cleaning, the cameras were updating, and the poor cat probably picked up something from the garden path. Can we please focus on the arrangements for tomorrow? The caterers from D.C. are calling every twenty minutes."
Arthur didn't reply to her. He turned to me. "Ms. Evans, take Sophie upstairs to her suite. Ensure she washes her hands, gets a light snack, and starts her reading assignment."
"Yes, Mr. Sterling," I said.
"Lily," Sophie murmured, tugging my hand as we reached the foot of the curving mahogany staircase. "Can we go see Barnaby’s bed in the library first?"
"Of course," I said softly.
The library was a two-story room lined with thousands of leather-bound volumes, featuring a rolling ladder, a massive granite fireplace, and high arched windows. Near the hearth sat a plush, velvet cat bed that Barnaby had occupied for a decade.
Sophie dropped her backpack onto a leather armchair and crouched near the hearth, reaching out to touch the empty velvet cushion. "He’s going to come home, right? Doctor Pierce won't let him die?"
"Dr. Pierce is doing everything he can, Sophie," I reassured her, kneeling beside her on the oriental rug. "Barnaby is a very stubborn cat. I don't think he’s ready to give up yet."
“I’m certainly not,” a voice echoed in my head.
I froze.
It wasn't Barnaby’s heavy, gravelly tone. It was a lighter, sharper, more frantic voice coming from above us.
I slowly raised my eyes toward the library’s upper gallery.
Perched on the brass railing twenty feet above our heads was a slender, black-and-white domestic shorthair with one notched ear. She was staring down at me with wide, green, luminous eyes.
“You’re the new human who listens,” the cat said, her tail flicking nervously against the brass spindle. “The old one didn't listen. The old one drank the sweet tea.”
My breath hitched in my chest. "Sophie," I said quietly, keeping my eyes fixed on the gallery. "Who is that up there?"
Sophie looked up, following my gaze. "Oh, that’s Duchess. She was my mother’s cat. She doesn't usually come down when Madeline is around. She hates Madeline’s perfume."
“Not the perfume,” Duchess hissed from the gallery, shifting her weight from paw to paw. “The powder. The white powder in the glass jar. She put it in the silver teapot before the lady with the quiet voice stopped waking up.”
My heart slammed against my ribs with such violence that I felt lightheaded.
The mother.
Arthur Sterling’s late wife, Eleanor Sterling, had passed away two years ago. The public record—which I had read on my phone during the bus ride from Richmond—stated that Eleanor had suffered from a sudden, aggressive neurodegenerative condition that led to heart failure over the span of four months.
“She put it in the tea,” Duchess repeated, crouching low against the wooden floorboards of the upper shelf. “And yesterday, she sprayed the blue water onto the carpet where the fat gray one sleeps. She wants everyone gone. She wants the big house for herself.”
"Lily?" Sophie asked, watching my face turn pale for the second time that day. "Are you okay? You’re doing the ghost thing again."
"I'm fine, sweetie," I forced myself to say, pulling my eyes away from Duchess. "I just... I thought I heard something outside."
"It's just the wind," Sophie said, standing up and dusting off her knees. "Madeline says this house is full of drafty old nonsense. She told Arthur we should sell the antique books and turn the library into a gym."
I looked around the magnificent, historic room—at the oil portraits of Sterling ancestors hanging between the book stacks, at the quiet dignity of the architecture, and at the little girl standing in front of me, entirely unaware that the woman set to become her stepmother might be a cold-blooded murderer.
"Sophie," I said softly, taking her hands in mine. "From now on, I want you to make a rule with me."
"What rule?"
"We only eat food that we prepare together in the main kitchen. And we only drink water from sealed glass bottles that I open in front of you. No tea, no juice from pre-opened pitchers, and nothing offered by anyone else. Can we do that? Like a secret team code?"
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Sophie stared at me with her solemn brown eyes. Children who have lost a parent are often terrifyingly perceptive. She didn't ask why. She simply nodded once, very firmly.
"Secret team code," she agreed.
