Chapter 1 - The Scent of Orange Peel
The rag slipped from Etta Malloy’s hand and landed softly on the floor.
Emilio Corsaro sat on the edge of his bed with one hand wrapped around a carved walnut cane. At thirty-four, he looked twice his age. His three-piece suits hung loose now. His cheeks had sharpened. Even speaking seemed to cost him breath.
Half of New Orleans feared Emilio Corsaro.
Etta had spent nineteen months cleaning his nineteen-room house.
Nobody had ever bothered to ask her last name.
“Sir?”
“Stay here tonight.”
He swallowed, then forced out the rest.
“Let me hold you once.”
Etta tucked her cracked, bleach-burned hands into her uniform sleeves.
“No, sir.”
Emilio blinked.
Men did not tell him no.
Women rarely did either.
“I’ll pay you.”
“That makes it worse.”
His expression tightened.
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow morning I still have to work here.”
She picked up the rag.
“Mrs. Tunney will know by breakfast. The kitchen will know by noon. Your brother will know before supper.”
“Nobody would dare—”
“They don’t have to say it in front of you.”
That stopped him.
Etta looked directly at him.
“You checked my assignment sheets.”
“Yes.”
“You sent something from my pocket to a laboratory.”
“Yes.”
“You decided money could solve whatever happened next.”
Emilio tightened his grip on the cane.
“I was trying to understand.”
“No.”
Her voice stayed quiet.
“You were informing me.”
On the mantel, a white ceramic diffuser pushed sandalwood perfume into the sealed bedroom.
Emilio opened his bedside drawer.
Inside lay a small hand-sewn cloth sachet.
Orange peel.
Lavender.
Cedar.
Etta’s.
“You dropped this in the east hallway.”
“I know.”
“I paid a laboratory in Baton Rouge four thousand dollars to test it.”
She stared at him.
“They found nothing.”
“Because it’s dried orange peel.”
Then Emilio told her about the forty-three blood draws. Three machines. Specialists from Houston. A physician he paid three hundred thousand dollars a year.
“In six weeks, I slept eleven full nights.”
Etta said nothing.
“You were assigned to this wing every one of them.”
“Three evenings a week.”
“Eleven out of eleven.”
Outside, rain moved away across the river.
Inside, only the air conditioner hummed.
“Why?” Emilio asked.
Etta looked toward the tall window behind his bed.
The paint had swollen along one corner of the frame.
She had noticed it months ago.
Mentioned it once.
Nothing happened.
“Tell me what to do,” Emilio said.
That was different.
Etta crossed the room and pressed one finger against the swollen paint.
The surface gave slightly beneath her touch.
“Open the window.”
“It was sealed last spring.”
“I know.”
“Security.”
“I know.”
“Four buildings have direct sightlines into this room.”
“I know.”
“Dr. Prentiss says outside air could—”
“Then I can’t help you.”
Etta picked up her bucket.
At the mantel, she reached over and switched off the ceramic diffuser.
The sweet smoke disappeared.
Emilio watched her.
“You always do that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Anything that has to smell that loud is covering something.”
Then she left.
The door clicked shut.
For the first time in fourteen months, Emilio listened to his bedroom instead of his own breathing.
Air conditioner.
Distant traffic.
Rainwater somewhere inside the gutters.
Then—
May you like
Drip.
A single drop of water fell inside the wall directly behind his head.
