Chapter 10 - Chemical Confirmation
I hurried down the quiet, marble-lined corridor leading to the East Wing medical dispensary, the heavy glass jar of thallium concentrate secured deep within my medical bag. My boots clicked sharply against the floor, echoing off the high vaulted ceilings of the mansion. The tension in the dining room had been a palpable, suffocating thing, but the real test awaited on the stainless-steel examination table inside my temporary clinic.
Locking the heavy wooden door behind me, I set my bag down and snapped on a fresh pair of disposable latex gloves. The sterile rubber stretched tightly over my fingers, a familiar and grounding sensation amidst the chaos of the Moretti estate. From the side pocket, I retrieved the small porcelain test dish and the rapid chemical reagent strips Leo had helped me secure from the estate’s auxiliary laboratory late last night.
I carefully poured a few drops of the intercepted tea from the porcelain cup into the glass beaker. My hands were steady, though my heart beat a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs. Julian had been entirely too eager to administer that specific beverage. He had played the devoted nephew role with rehearsed precision, but his haste betrayed him.
Using a pair of medical tweezers, I dipped a narrow chemical test strip into the amber liquid. We held our breath in the quiet room as the treated paper absorbed the fluid. Seconds ticked by in absolute silence, the only sound being the distant chime of the mansion grandfather clock striking ten in the hall.
Within thirty seconds, the pale yellow strip began to change color. The edges darkened, shifting rapidly through shades of olive green before settling into a deep, unmistakable violet hue.
The color change was absolute. The reagent didn't just indicate heavy metal contamination; it screamed a massive, lethal concentration of thallium sulfate—the exact same compound I had isolated from the floral arrangement on Dante's desk and the service chute behind the dispensary.
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There was no longer any room for doubt, hesitation, or coincidence. Julian wasn't just managing his uncle's decline; he was actively executing a controlled, methodical assassination, poisoning his own blood relative day by day to seize control of the Moretti empire before the weekend concluded.
I stripped off the latex gloves, dropped them into the biohazard bin, and picked up the test strip with trembling fingers. The physical evidence was complete. It was time to take the final piece of the puzzle directly to Dante.
