Chapter 3 - Twelve Missing Bottles
Emilio’s security detail moved before anyone else did.
Flashlights cut through the conservatory.
Doors slammed.
Men shouted into radios.
Etta remained beside Emilio while Dr. Shah gathered her medical files.
“Backup generator should have activated,” Emilio said.
It did not.
That frightened Etta more than the darkness.
A house built around security did not simply lose power.
Someone wanted it blind.
Emilio’s chief of security, Gabriel Voss, entered.
“Generator line was manually disconnected.”
“Reconnect it.”
“Already happening.”
“The glass?”
“Upstairs pharmacy cabinet.”
Emilio’s expression changed.
“Take me there.”
“You shouldn’t—”
“Take me there.”
Ten minutes later, Emilio stood with his cane outside the small medical suite beside his old bedroom.
The locked cabinet had been smashed.
Twelve medication bottles were missing.
Only one remained.
It had rolled beneath a cabinet.
Gabriel held it inside an evidence bag.
“Who has access?” Emilio asked.
“Prentiss. Nurse Delaney. Mrs. Tunney. You. Me.”
“And Rafe?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Master access.”
Emilio looked at him.
“Change every code.”
“Already done.”
“Find Prentiss.”
Gabriel’s silence answered before his words did.
“We can’t.”
Dr. Prentiss had left New Orleans forty minutes earlier.
His phone was off.
His house was empty.
His private plane had departed Lakefront Airport for Mexico.
Etta watched something cold settle behind Emilio’s eyes.
This was the man New Orleans feared.
But instead of ordering violence, he said, “Call the police.”
Gabriel blinked.
“Police?”
“Yes.”
That single word seemed harder for Emilio than any threat.
For most of his adult life, the Corsaro family had solved problems inside the Corsaro family.
Now someone had tried to kill him from within it.
Emilio wanted witnesses who could not be bought by his name.
By midnight, detectives occupied the west wing.
The remaining medication was secured.
Dr. Shah arranged immediate toxicology testing.
Etta should have gone home hours earlier.
Instead, she sat outside the conservatory with a paper cup of coffee cooling between her hands.
Emilio found her there.
He had changed into black pajamas and a robe. Without the suits, he seemed even thinner.
“You’re still here.”
“You have a talent for stating obvious things.”
His mouth almost smiled.
“Why?”
Etta looked down.
“My bus stopped running.”
A lie.
He knew it.
She knew he knew it.
But he allowed her dignity to remain intact.
“Guest room seven is prepared.”
“I’m staff.”
“Tonight everyone in this house is a witness.”
“That isn’t better.”
This time he actually smiled.
Small.
Exhausted.
Real.
“You’re difficult.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“By whom?”
“Mostly people who wanted something.”
His smile vanished.
Etta regretted the sentence immediately.
But Emilio only nodded.
“I understand that.”
For the next week, Corsaro House became half mansion, half investigation scene.
Dr. Shah changed Emilio’s treatment.
The suspicious medications stopped.
The conservatory became his temporary bedroom.
Fresh air circulated constantly.
And something unexpected happened.
Emilio improved.
Not dramatically.
Not miraculously.
But unmistakably.
He ate.
He slept.
His tremor decreased.
By the eighth morning, he walked from the conservatory to the dining room without stopping.
Etta saw him standing in the hallway and nearly dropped a basket of towels.
“You’re staring.”
“You’re walking.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“Not lately.”
Emilio looked almost offended.
Then he took another step.
His knee buckled.
Etta instinctively reached for him.
His arm went around her shoulders.
For one breath, they were pressed together.
Both froze.
Emilio immediately released her.
“Sorry.”
The word surprised her.
Powerful men rarely apologized for occupying space.
“You nearly fell.”
“I noticed.”
“You’re heavier than you look.”
“That sounded insulting.”
“It was medical information.”
His laugh came unexpectedly.
It was rusty from disuse.
Etta smiled before she could stop herself.
Then they both became aware of Gabriel standing at the end of the hallway.
The security chief looked away with suspicious speed.
“Not one word,” Emilio warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
Later that afternoon, police recovered something from Dr. Prentiss’s abandoned office.
A second set of medical records.
The records documented Emilio’s actual improvement several months earlier.
Those improvements had never appeared in the files given to Emilio.
Someone had altered his charts.
More troubling was a series of payments to Prentiss through a shell company.
The company belonged to a corporation.
The corporation belonged to another corporation.
The final beneficial owner was hidden.
Gabriel spent twelve hours tracing it.
At 2:17 a.m., he entered the conservatory carrying a folder.
Etta was asleep in a chair near the doorway.
Emilio was awake.
“Tell me.”
Gabriel lowered his voice.
“The money leads back to a holding company called Pelican Maritime.”
Emilio went still.
Etta woke at the change in the room.
“What is it?” she asked.
Emilio did not answer.
Gabriel did.
“Pelican Maritime belonged to Emilio’s father.”
“Belonged?”
“He divided it between his sons.”
Etta looked at Emilio.
“Which son controls it now?”
Emilio stared at the folder.
“Rafe.”
The next morning, Rafe disappeared.
His apartment was empty.
His car was found near the river.
His passport had not been used.
His phone was discovered smashed beneath the Crescent City Connection.
Police believed he had fled.
Emilio did not.
“He wants us to believe he fled.”
“How do you know?” Etta asked.
“Because Rafe likes being watched.”
Emilio stood at the conservatory window.
“If he wanted to disappear, he would leave something dramatic behind.”
“You mean like his car?”
“No.”
Emilio looked at her reflection in the glass.
“Like a body.”
Etta felt cold.
Three days later, a body was found floating near Algiers Point.
The wallet belonged to Rafe Corsaro.
The watch belonged to Rafe Corsaro.
The clothes belonged to Rafe Corsaro.
But when Emilio was taken to identify the body, he stared at it for less than five seconds.
“That isn’t my brother.”
The detective frowned.
“Mr. Corsaro—”
“Rafe broke his left collarbone when he was thirteen.”
Emilio pointed.
“That man never did.”
The room went silent.
Rafe Corsaro was alive.
And now he knew everyone believed he was dead.
That evening, Etta returned to her tiny apartment.
The front door was open.
Her heart stopped.
She stepped inside.
Nothing appeared stolen.
On her kitchen table sat the cloth sachet Emilio had sent to the laboratory.
Orange peel.
Lavender.
Cedar.
Beside it was a photograph of Etta leaving Corsaro House.
On the back, four words had been written in black ink.
He dies without you.
May you like
Then her bedroom floor creaked.
Someone was still inside the apartment.
