Chapter 3 - Luca’s Doctor Recognizes A Dangerous Pattern
The leaves were taken for laboratory analysis.
Luca went to Northwestern Memorial for evaluation even though he had not
eaten the dinner.
His personal physician, Dr. Aaron Feld, met him there.
Emma expected her involvement to end.
Instead, detectives asked her for a formal statement.
She gave only what she saw.
No theories.
No accusations beyond the plate switch and silver box.
Then Dr. Feld heard about the substance.
His reaction worried Luca.
For four months, Luca had experienced unexplained episodes.
Nausea.
Dizziness.
Abnormal heart rhythm.
Weakness.
Twice he nearly collapsed after dinner.
Doctors blamed stress, dehydration, and overwork because symptoms
resolved between episodes.
Vanessa had attended every appointment.
She often brought Luca tea afterward.
Dr. Feld asked whether Luca still had any of those tea packets.
Security searched the mansion.
They found several in Vanessa’s private sitting room.
The lab had not yet identified the leaves.
Nobody called them poison.
But the pattern justified testing.
Luca looked at Dominic.
“Who knew about the episodes?”
“Family. Vanessa. Senior staff.”
Emma stood near the doorway.
She suddenly remembered something.
Three weeks earlier, Vanessa had ordered the kitchen to stop preparing
Luca’s evening tea.
She said she would make it personally because “the staff keeps getting
it wrong.”
Emma told detectives.
Vanessa’s attorney objected to treating ordinary domestic behavior as
evidence.
He was right about one thing.
Making tea was not a crime.
But combined with the plate switch and unexplained illness, it became
relevant.
Then a detective asked Emma:
“Has Ms. Bellini ever asked you to handle Mr. Moretti’s food?”
Emma remembered a strange request.
Vanessa had once offered her five hundred dollars to deliver a covered
tray upstairs without letting the chef see it.
Emma had refused because it violated kitchen rules.
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At the time, she thought Vanessa was merely arrogant.
Now she wondered what had been beneath that cover.
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