Chapter 2 - Seven Missing MinutesDetective Maya Chen arrived at 5:42 p.m.
By then the birthday party had become a crime scene.
Parents escorted children out through the west entrance after officers recorded names and contact information. Staff remained in separate rooms. The ballroom cake stood untouched behind temporary evidence markers.
Dominic hated police inside his house.
Today he invited them deeper.
Maya wore a gray blazer beneath her coat and carried no visible judgment.
She had arrested three Moretti associates during her career.
Dominic respected her because she had never confused fearlessness with theater.
She looked at the broken plate.
“Who touched this after it fell?”
“No one,” Dominic said.
“Good.”
She glanced toward Lily.
Sophia was sitting with her on a sofa.
“You questioned her?”
“Barely.”
“Don’t do it again.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“She saw the man.”
“And she’s three.”
Sophia looked grateful.
Maya crouched several feet away.
“I’m Maya.”
Lily held a stuffed rabbit somebody had found upstairs.
“I’m Lily.”
“I heard you helped Ethan.”
Lily looked at the floor.
Maya did not ask about the stranger.
Instead she talked about the rabbit.
Its ears.
Its color.
Whether Lily liked birthday cake.
Five minutes passed.
Then Maya asked, “Did the man with the shiny bird talk to you?”
Lily nodded.
Dominic leaned forward.
Maya lifted a finger toward him without turning.
He stopped.
“What did he say?”
Lily whispered, “Go find Mommy.”
“Was he mad?”
“No.”
“Was he smiling?”
“Yes.”
Sophia shivered.
“What did the shiny bird look like?”
Lily drew with a blue crayon.
The result was mostly circles.
But beside them she made two wings.
Frank Mercer stood across the room.
Maya noticed his expression.
“So,” she said, “who uses a silver bird?”
Frank answered slowly.
“Old Moretti security contractors used a raven pin.”
Dominic turned.
“Old?”
“Before I standardized uniforms.”
“When?”
“About six years ago.”
“Who still has them?”
Frank hesitated.
“Some retired personnel.”
Maya stood.
“Names.”
Frank handed over a historical roster.
Meanwhile, crime-scene technicians collected frosting samples.
Reynolds was transported to the hospital awake but confused. Doctors believed he had been incapacitated rather than seriously injured.
Pike’s phone was found in a linen closet.
Pike himself remained missing.
Dominic stood beside Ethan near the windows.
His son had not cried.
That worried him.
“You okay?”
Ethan shrugged.
“I wasn’t scared.”
“You’re allowed to be.”
“I know.”
Dominic watched him.
Ethan looked toward Lily.
“Is she in trouble?”
“No.”
“She broke Nana Elena’s plate.”
Dominic glanced at the fragments.
The porcelain belonged to a dinner service Ethan’s late mother had chosen years earlier.
“No plate matters more than you.”
Ethan absorbed that.
Then asked, “Was somebody trying to kill me?”
Dominic’s chest tightened.
He could lie.
He had spent much of his adult life lying.
To police.
To rivals.
To investors.
To himself.
Not to Ethan.
“We don’t know what somebody was trying to do.”
“But they put something in my cake.”
“Maybe.”
“Lily saw it.”
“Yes.”
Ethan’s voice became smaller.
“If she hadn’t…”
Dominic knelt.
“But she did.”
Ethan looked at him.
“That doesn’t answer it.”
No.
It didn’t.
Dominic put a hand on his shoulder.
“Someone made a mistake coming near you.”
Maya heard him from across the room.
She walked over.
“Careful.”
Dominic stood.
“With what?”
“The way you talk.”
He stared.
“If this was deliberate, I need evidence before you decide somebody owes blood.”
“This is my son.”
“Exactly. So maybe don’t turn his eighth birthday into the first scene of a war.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“You think I need advice?”
“I think you need your son alive more than you need revenge.”
Ethan looked between them.
Dominic forced himself to breathe.
Maya was right.
That annoyed him.
Frank entered carrying a tablet.
“We recovered partial badge logs.”
Dominic turned.
“The corridor?”
“Yes.”
“At 3:06, Pike’s badge opened the east service door.”
“Where was Pike?”
“We don’t know.”
“At 3:09?”
Frank swiped.
“A master credential accessed the cake preparation room.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
“Whose?”
“That’s the problem.”
Maya stepped closer.
“What kind of master credential?”
“One created before the current security system.”
“Who has access?”
Frank looked at Dominic.
“Your family office.”
Dominic stared.
“My office?”
“Not your personal account.”
Frank swallowed.
“The Moretti legacy administrative account.”
Dominic knew exactly who controlled it.
Vincent Moretti.
His father’s older brother.
His uncle.
His adviser.
The man who had helped Dominic survive the bloodiest years after his father’s death.
Dominic said nothing.
Maya saw the recognition.
“Who?”
“No one yet.”
She frowned.
“Dominic.”
“A credential isn’t a person.”
“Good. Remember that.”
A technician entered.
“We found something else.”
He held a clear evidence sleeve.
Inside was a silver raven pin.
Sophia covered her mouth.
Lily pointed.
“Bird.”
The pin had been recovered behind a catering cart inside the service corridor.
Dominic looked at Frank.
“You said those haven’t been used for six years.”
“They haven’t.”
“Then why is one sitting twenty feet from my son’s cake?”
Frank’s face hardened.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic moved closer.
“Seven minutes of footage vanish. One guard is unconscious. One disappears. An obsolete badge opens a locked room. An obsolete pin appears beside it.”
Maya interrupted.
“And none of that proves who did it.”
Dominic ignored her.
Frank suddenly said, “There’s something I didn’t tell you.”
Sophia’s eyes closed.
Maya took out her notebook.
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“What?”
Frank stared at the floor.
“Yesterday morning, Vincent called me.”
The room went silent.
“He said a contractor needed corridor access during the party.”
Dominic’s expression did not move.
“What contractor?”
“Fire-control inspection.”
“During my son’s birthday?”
“He said it was urgent.”
“And you let him in?”
“I told Pike to verify credentials.”
“Did you verify them?”
Frank looked up.
“No.”
Dominic stood completely still.
That frightened Sophia more than shouting would have.
Frank continued.
“I assumed if the order came from Vincent—”
“You assumed.”
“Yes.”
“My son nearly ate something a stranger put in his food because you assumed.”
Frank’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“No, Frank.”
Dominic stepped close.
“You don’t know yet.”
Maya moved between them.
“Enough.”
Dominic looked past her.
“Where is Vincent?”
Frank answered.
“At his house in Connecticut.”
Maya immediately said, “You are not going there.”
Dominic almost laughed.
“You think you can stop me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“By reminding you that if your uncle is innocent, you’ll destroy your family. If he’s guilty, you’ll destroy the case.”
Dominic stared at her.
Behind Maya, Ethan reached for Lily’s hand.
The two children stood silently beside their mothers.
Dominic saw them.
And made a decision nobody in the room expected.
“Call Vincent.”
Frank blinked.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on speaker?”
“No.”
Dominic looked at Maya.
“You call him.”
Maya studied him.
“Why?”
“Because if someone inside my family came for my son, I want them to believe I still don’t know where to look.”
For the first time, Detective Maya Chen smiled.
Not warmly.
“Now you’re thinking like a witness instead of a Mafia boss.”
Dominic looked toward the silver raven pin.
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But he was thinking like neither.
He was thinking like a father who had just discovered the locked door around his child might have been opened from inside.
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