The Maid Drank the Poisoned Wine Meant for Her Millionaire Boss—Then a Note Fell From Her Bloody Sleeve, and His Fiancée Turned Pale...

"DON'T DRINK THAT!"

My scream hit the dining room a second before the wine touched Elias Wren's mouth. Twelve people turned. A violinist missed a note. Blood trickled beneath my housekeeper's collar, warm against a white apron already torn at the shoulder.

Elias lowered the glass an inch. "Harper? What happened to you?"

Across the table, his fiancée smiled. Mara Voss wore a silver dress and the kind of diamonds people bought when they wanted strangers to mistake money for character.

"She's having another episode," Mara said. "Somebody get her out."

I had been at Bellwether House for eleven weeks. In that time, I'd learned that the help could walk through a room carrying a hundred-pound tray and still be invisible. Tonight, invisibility was the only reason I'd seen Mara put something in his wine.

I reached for the glass. Elias tightened his fingers around it.

"Harper, you're bleeding."

"Please," I said. "Your heart medication. You can't—"

Mara stood. "She stole from the study. I caught her. That's why she's running around like a lunatic."

A man by the doorway shifted. Rafe Kellan, the head of security. Fifteen minutes earlier, he had slammed me into a pantry shelf hard enough to split my skin. He wasn't watching my wound. He was watching my hands.

Elias looked at Mara. "What did you put in my glass?"

"Nothing. Ask her to prove it."

For one terrible second, the room waited for my answer. If Rafe grabbed the glass, it would disappear. If I threw it, everyone would call me the hysterical maid who destroyed the evidence. My phone was recording audio in my apron pocket, but I needed the glass preserved and her words caught on tape.

So I took one mouthful.

The wine was bitter beneath its sweetness. I set the glass on the table without letting go of its stem.

"Now call 911," I whispered.

Mara's smile vanished. Elias caught my elbow as the chandelier split into three bright circles above us.

"What was in it?" he demanded.

I looked straight at his fiancée. "Ask the woman who ordered the pharmacy delivery."

My knees folded. Elias caught me before my head struck the marble. As he knelt, a crumpled paper slid from the inside of my bloodstained sleeve. Three words faced upward in block letters:

STUDY. MIDNIGHT. SAFE.