Victor laughed again, but the sound had lost its weight.
“You are building a criminal case out of printer marks and restaurant gossip.”
The private elevator opened.
Rourke’s man returned carrying the test kit.
His face gave away the result before he spoke.
“The water reacts for a strong sedative.
Keller’s wine reacts for a separate toxic compound.
Different substances.
Both active.”
Jenna covered her mouth.
Keller’s grip tightened until Victor winced.
Rourke looked down at the clean water glass Claire had placed in front of him.
“How much time would I have had?”
“The field kit cannot tell us dosage,” the man said.
“But if you had emptied the glass, impairment could have started within minutes.”
Rourke’s eyes shifted to Keller’s untouched wine.
“And him?”
“We need a laboratory.
I would treat it as potentially fatal.”
The dining room remained silent.
Victor stopped denying the poison.
Instead, he attacked the motive.
“You think Keller would remain loyal forever?” he asked Rourke.
“You think the people around you love you? They wait for weakness.
Every one of them.
I built the structure that kept you standing.
I deserved more than a salary and a chair outside the room.”
“So you decided to take the room,” Rourke said.
“I decided to save what you were wasting.”
“By murdering the man beside me.”
“By removing the man who made you dependent on him.”
Keller’s face went still.
There was the relationship wound beneath the financial plan.
Victor had not only wanted control.
He had hated the trust Rourke placed in Keller.
Rourke understood it at the same moment.
“This was not about protecting me,” he said.
“You could not tolerate that I trusted him more.”
Victor’s silence became an answer.
Claire looked toward the service corridor.
Through the open curtain, she could see the small ceiling camera above the water station.
“The corridor camera,” she said.
“Does Halcyon store footage locally?”
Jenna nodded.
“The manager’s terminal keeps a backup for twenty-four hours.”
Victor immediately said, “The cameras were down tonight.”
Claire turned toward him.
“You know that very quickly for a guest.”
Keller almost smiled.
Rourke ordered the terminal brought to the table.
The manager, pale and careful, unlocked the backup system.
The main dining-room feed showed an interruption beginning at eight forty-two.
The corridor backup had not stopped.
It showed Victor entering through the employee door at seven sixteen.
He carried the black case under his coat.
At seven twenty-one, he placed the blue-sealed bottle in the ice bin.
