Page 402 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 2

Any remaining doubt I had dissipated. "Then watch the past several weeks. If she didn't do it, that means someone poisoned her."

"I already watched a few days back. No one's come in or out of the house." He stepped forward and dropped his voice. "Could it have been someone at the wedding?"

"No."

"Or Ellen?"

I shook my head. I was done doubting my gut. "Ellen didn't do it. It isn't someone from the family. Keep watching the tapes. It has to be something you missed. During the time in between scans of the house."

He nodded. "How far back?"

"Until you find something."

"I'll call you when I've found it." He closed the front door and I heard the familiar lock. Could someone really have gotten into our house? How long did it take to go from the entrance of the apartment, up the elevator, and perform a successful lock-pick? I ran my fingers through my hair. I had to be missing something.

My phone buzzed. At first I thought it was Porter already. I eagerly answered the call.

"James," Matt said. "How are you holding up?"

"Not great." I looked in the other room at my daughter playing with the remote control. She had turned on the same Harry Potter movie that had scared her the other night. I was about to go stop her when Matt continued.

"Daphne called me. She told me about the poison. I agree with her, man. Penny was happy."

I closed my eyes. For some reason, I needed to hear that from him. If he had been hitting on her, that meant she had turned him down. If she thought I was cheating on her, would she have? It just further validated what Daphne had said. Penny didn't even suspect anything until her conversation with Rob. "Where were you today?" Most of the day was a blur, but I didn't remember seeing him at the hospital.

"Rob was having me talk to an investigator. Look, I know you're probably exhausted. But I had a thought. Well, the investigator had a thought. I can't take the credit. What if her first OB-GYN, the retired one, didn't tell you that she had a heart murmur because it really did disappear after Scarlett was born? Apparently it usually does after a baby is delivered."

"But it didn't. It's just gotten worse."

"No, not necessarily," he said. "No one knows if she had one between her pregnancies. It may have actually gone away. What I'm saying is, what if someone's been poisoning her for a while? What if her heart condition is caused by it too?"

A chill ran down my spine.

"Yeah, but who, Matt? No one comes in or out of my apartment without my security alerting me."

A knock on the door made me jump.

I answered it and Matt was standing there.

I slowly lowered my phone from my ear.

"Not necessarily. I just snuck by them," Matt said. "Whoever did it must have hacked into the webcam of one of their computers. He must have watched them not watching the surveillance footage. Well, technically, he probably saw that they were just glancing at it every five minutes."

I frowned and looked up at the camera mounted in the corner.

"See. There's a chink in your armor." He closed the door behind him. "Someone could have snuck in here and poisoned her. Easily."

I shook my head. "They'd only have a few minutes to pull it off. And if your theory is correct, they would have had to be poisoning her for a long time. Not just this once."

"Right. So what does Penny eat a lot?"

"Ice cream."

Matt smiled. "Do you mind if the investigator comes up? He had some ideas of what it could be. He's waiting downstairs."

"Yeah, of course. Bring him up." If Matt was right, it had to be something that didn't spoil. No one would risk coming in here several times. Penny's cravings had been erratic.

"Daddy," Scarlett said and tugged on my pants leg.