Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO LOVED ME UNDER A FALSE NAME
“Why would Marcus care about an old photograph?”
Isabella didn't answer.
Her eyes moved from me to Raphael, then back to the white envelope in my hand.
For thirteen months, I had trusted her with the parts of myself I never showed anyone.
Now she stood before me looking like a stranger.
“Your name,” I said. “Tell me your real name.”
Her lips trembled.
“Isabella Hart.”
“Try again.”
She lowered her head.
“Isabella Vale. Hart was my mother's maiden name.”
Raphael closed the bathroom door.
I held up the photograph.
“Your brother was convicted of murdering my father.”
“He didn't murder anyone.”
“Then why didn't you tell me who you were?”
“Because Marcus told me you would never speak to me if you knew.”
I laughed once.
There was nothing funny about it.
“So Marcus told you to lie, and you did.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of her answer hurt more than an excuse would have.
She sat on the edge of the bathtub.
Eight years seemed to have settled across her shoulders.
“My brother Noah was twenty-one when the warehouse burned,” she began. “He'd worked there for seven months. He wasn't some hardened criminal. He was saving money to finish school.”
I remembered newspaper photographs of Noah Vale.
A frightened young man in a courtroom.
An angry prosecutor.
My father's coffin.
I'd been so consumed by grief that I never asked whether the evidence made sense.
“Marcus came to see me six months after Noah went to prison,” Isabella continued. “He said the Moretti family had information that could clear him.”
“And?”
“He said you were keeping it.”
My chest tightened.
“I knew nothing about it.”
“I know that now.”
She looked directly at me.
“But I didn't know it thirteen months ago.”
Marcus had approached her again shortly before our first meeting.
He claimed Dante Moretti was finally willing to reconsider the warehouse investigation.
But first, Marcus said, Isabella needed to gain my trust.
“Gain my trust how?”
She closed her eyes.
“By finding certain records your father left behind.”
“Those envelopes?”
She nodded.
“At first, Marcus asked for harmless things. Copies of old inventory lists. Names of former employees. Photographs of your father's office files.”
“And later?”
“Security schedules. Vehicle assignments. Information about who came to the house.”
I stepped away.
“You gave him access to my life.”
“I did.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered, “I'm ashamed of it.”
She explained that Marcus had promised each envelope would bring Noah closer to a new hearing.
Instead, his demands became more personal.
Two months earlier, he had asked for the names of employees who could enter my private rooms.
Last week, he demanded information about Elena's schedule.
Yesterday, he asked what time Sophie usually left the house.
I stared at her.
“Why would he care about a five-year-old?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you give him the information?”
“No.”
“How can I believe that?”
Her eyes filled.
“You can't. Not because I say so.”
That answer stopped me.
She reached into her pocket and removed a folded sheet.
It was a copy of the envelope she had delivered that afternoon.
Most of the information was false.
She had changed the vehicle assignments and removed the names of household employees.
“I started giving him useless information three weeks ago,” she explained. “I was afraid of what he wanted it for.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he has people watching Noah.”
I looked at Raphael.
He was studying the paper with an expression I couldn't read.
“There's another reason,” Isabella said.
I turned back.
She pointed toward the photograph.
“Noah mailed me that after he learned Marcus had introduced us. He'd kept a copy of the picture in his prison papers.”
“Why hide it behind my toilet?”
“Because Marcus searches my room. I needed somewhere his men wouldn't look. I meant to show you when I could explain everything.”
“And the blue ribbon?”
She touched her wrist.
“My mother used to tie blue ribbons around gifts. Noah remembered. He told me to mark anything important with one, so I wouldn't lose track of the evidence.”
For the first time, I saw something other than deception.
I saw a woman who had spent eight years trying to save her brother.
But I still couldn't forgive what she'd done.
“Why did Noah send the photograph now?”
Isabella stood.
“Because he remembered something about the fire.”
I felt my pulse quicken.
“What?”
“Your father's pocket watch.”
I glanced toward my bedroom.
The silver watch sat in a glass case on my desk.
It had been recovered from the warehouse ruins.
Its hands were frozen at 8:17.
For eight years, I'd believed that was the moment my father died.
Isabella gripped the edge of the sink.
“Noah says the investigators used that watch to establish the timeline. They said your father was already dead when Noah left the building.”
“That was the evidence.”
“But Noah told them he hadn't left.”
I stared at her.
“He says he was trying to get a loading door open. He heard someone inside shouting for help.”
I could barely breathe.
“Who?”
She wiped her cheeks.
“Your father.”
“That's impossible.”
Isabella shook her head.
“Dante, Noah remembers the church clock across the street. It was ringing the quarter hour before nine.”
My mouth went dry.
The official report placed my father's death more than twenty minutes earlier.
May you like
Then Isabella said something that made Raphael grip the bathroom counter.
“My brother heard Salvatore Moretti alive at 8:45 that night. And he says someone was locking the door from the outside.”
