The Pink Pouch
Chapter 04 - The Pink Pouch
Gabriel smiled as if he had arrived carrying flowers.
He wore a charcoal suit, a burgundy tie, and the gold bird pin my father had given him the year before everything began to rot. In his right hand, he held Sophie's inhaler pouch. In his left, nothing at all.
That was how Gabriel preferred to enter a room.
Unarmed and guilty only of being prepared.
"Mrs. Carter," he said. "You left this downstairs."
Grace did not reach for it.
Good.
"Give it to me," I said.
Gabriel's eyes stayed on Grace.
"A child shouldn't go without medicine because adults are suspicious."
"Then place it on the table."
He sighed, disappointed in my manners, and set the pouch on the console between two white arrangements Isabella had ordered for the wedding week.
The flowers suddenly looked obscene.
"You closed my floor," I said.
"Your guards still remember who taught them their jobs."
"Not well enough, apparently."
His smile thinned.
Grace shifted Sophie behind her body as much as she could while still holding her. Gabriel noticed. He noticed everything he could use.
"The little one is frightened," he said.
Sophie whispered, "I am not little."
Gabriel looked at her.
His smile returned.
"No. I suppose not. You are the girl who finds things."
Grace's voice cut through the hall.
"Don't speak to my daughter."
Something flashed behind Gabriel's eyes.
Not anger.
Recognition.
For one second, he looked at Grace as though she had reminded him of someone. Then it passed.
"Leon," he said, turning back to me. "May we talk privately?"
"No."
"You're making a mistake."
"I've made several. Start with the one where I trusted you."
The hallway went still.
Gabriel folded his hands in front of him. He had always done that when he wanted a room to believe he was the only adult inside it.
"Isabella found a recorder in your office last month," he said. "I told her to place one of ours to discover who was targeting you."
"And after the wedding, the empire would be ours?"
For the first time, Gabriel's eyelid moved.
So he did not know about the second system.
Interesting.
"Words can be edited," he said.
"Children less so."
His gaze moved to Sophie.
"Children can be mistaken."
Grace stepped forward so fast my guard moved with her.
She stopped herself before anyone touched her.
"My daughter is not your problem to solve."
Gabriel's face softened in a way that made my hand close into a fist.
"Everyone becomes someone's problem eventually. Even your husband did."
Grace went white.
There it was.
Peter Carter, dragged from the grave by a man who knew precisely where to place the knife.
"What did you say?" she asked.
Gabriel looked almost sorry.
"Your husband was warned not to involve himself in accounts above his level. He chose pride. Pride leaves widows."
The silence after that sentence belonged to Grace.
Not to me.
Not to my guards.
Not even to the child watching her mother's face change.
Grace looked at Gabriel and said, very quietly, "You knew Peter."
"Many employees passed through our companies."
"You knew his name before Leon said it."
Gabriel's mouth closed.
A small mistake.
But small mistakes had hanged better men than him.
I looked at the pink pouch on the console.
"Marco."
He understood without being told. He picked up the pouch with a handkerchief, opened it, and removed the inhaler.
Then he froze.
Taped beneath the inhaler was a flat silver disc.
A tracker.
Grace made a sound that turned Sophie's face into her shoulder.
Gabriel sighed.
"You always did take too long to learn ugly lessons, Leon."
I stepped toward him.
He did not step back.
"Who killed Peter Carter?" I asked.
"Ask your father."
"My father is dead."
"Conveniently."
A cold line moved through my chest.
"What does that mean?"
Gabriel smiled again, but now it looked tired. Older.
"It means your house has more ghosts than you can afford, nephew. And if you want to know which one killed the accountant, don't ask me. Ask the woman you're protecting."
His eyes moved to Grace.
Grace stared back, stunned.
Then Gabriel turned and walked toward the elevator as if he had not just lit a fuse beneath everyone I had ever loved or failed to protect.
Marco lifted his gun halfway.
I shook my head.
Not here.
Not with Sophie watching.
The elevator doors closed around Gabriel's smile.
Only then did Grace whisper, "Why would he say that?"
I looked at the silver tracker, then at the recorder still heavy in my pocket.
"Because he wants me looking at you instead of him."
Grace's eyes filled with fury.
"And are you?"
May you like
Before I could answer, Sophie's small voice broke the silence.
"Mommy," she whispered, "Daddy had one of those silver circles too."
