He turned toward Maya with predatory slowness. The girl was still on the ground, but now she had stopped trying to get up. She was paralyzed with terror.
“Did you break my mother’s vase?” Lucas asked.
Maya lifted her face. Her large, dark eyes were filled with water, and Lucas couldn’t tell if it was tears or rain.
“No, sir… please, listen to me,” her voice was a broken thread. “That’s not true. I didn’t do it.”
“Don’t lie!” Elena shouted, losing her composure for a split second, taking a threatening step toward the girl. “I found you there! I tried to reason with you, I tried to get you to confess so I wouldn’t have to bother the gentleman, but you’re a cynic!”
“No!” Maya sobbed, looking at Lucas, desperately searching for a trace of humanity in his face. “I was cleaning the hallway because Mrs. Elena told me to polish the floor again, even though I’d already done it. My back was turned when I heard the noise…”
“Enough!” roared Lucas.
The scream was so powerful that Maya physically stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet. Her heel slipped in the mud and she fell sideways, hitting her hip against the garden stones.
The Tupperware container flew out of his hands.
It was a pathetic and heartbreaking sight. The lid popped open as it hit the ground, and the contents spilled onto the dirty gravel. White rice and some watery black beans mingled with the mud.
Maya let out a groan, but not because of the food. As she fell, she had put her hand out to break her fall, and her palm had landed on a sharp rock. When she lifted her hand, Lucas saw bright red blood gushing out, mingling with the rainwater running down her wrist.
She looked at her hand, then at the spilled food, and finally at Lucas.
“Sir…” she whispered, her voice choked by a lump in her throat. “That vase… I know what it means to you. I would never… I would never harm anything of your mother’s.”
There was a sincerity in her voice that made Lucas hesitate for a second. There was a weight to her words, a dignity that didn’t fit the image of a clumsy, lying employee.
But then he looked at Elena. Elena, who had cared for him when his mother died. Elena, who had kept that house running like clockwork while he drank himself into grief years before. Elena never lied. Elena was the guardian of the house.
“That vase had been in my family for three generations,” Lucas said, his voice cold and distant, shutting the door on any compassion. “My mother adored it. And you broke it. And now you have the nerve to lie to my face, wet and dirty in my garden.”
“Sir, I swear on my son…” Maya began.
“Don’t drag your son into this!” Lucas interrupted. He ran his hands over his face, feeling the exhaustion sink in like a slab of concrete. His head ached, he was cold, and he was disappointed. He hated incompetence. He hated messiness. And this scene was the epitome of both. “I can’t stand liars, Maya. I can forgive an accident, but not a lie.”