Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Wasn't Buried
Alexander stared at Isabella DeLuca's photograph until Thomas quietly asked whether he needed a moment.
“No,” Alexander answered. “I need an address.”
The woman in the picture had aged.
Her dark hair had become silver, and the lines around her eyes were deeper.
But there was no mistaking her.
Alexander remembered the painted portrait his father had kept behind a locked door.
Isabella, wearing a cream-colored dress, one hand resting on the back of a wooden chair.
He remembered asking why the portrait was never displayed with the other family pictures.
Dominic had replied, “Some memories belong to the people who survived them.”
For the first time, Alexander wondered whether his father had meant something entirely different.
Thomas checked the medical registration.
“Voss owns two properties. The clinic and a private rehabilitation facility upstate.”
“Send a team to both.”
“Alexander, if Isabella is alive, somebody has kept her hidden for twenty-five years. We need to understand why before approaching her.”
Alexander looked at him.
“And Rachel is trapped in a building connected to the doctor who declared her dead.”
Thomas nodded.
“We move carefully.”
Alexander was accustomed to men obeying him without question.
Tonight, he was grateful his oldest friend still knew when to disagree.
They left the mansion shortly after one in the morning.
Eleanor insisted on coming.
Alexander refused.
She took his hand.
“Your father made terrible choices,” she said. “But he wasn't always the man you remember.”
Alexander's expression tightened.
“That doesn't excuse what he did.”
“No. It doesn't.”
She released his hand.
“Just remember that loving someone and protecting them aren't always the same thing.”
At the Queens clinic, Rachel confronted Nathan.
“You knew my mother was murdered, and you let me spend my life believing she died in an accident?”
Nathan remained seated.
“I didn't know until last year.”
“And Alexander?”
“He doesn't know either.”
Rachel studied him.
“You're afraid of your brother.”
Nathan laughed without humor.
“I've been afraid of disappointing him since I was ten.”
“That's not what I meant.”
His smile vanished.
Rachel folded Oliver's drawing.
“Tell me what happened to you.”
Nathan looked toward the window.
“Eight months ago, I found a payment ledger among our father's old records. Eighteen million dollars transferred through a charitable foundation called the Haven Foundation.”
“Was it stolen?”
“No. That was the problem. It was exactly where Dad wanted it.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“Those payments supported safe housing, medical care, and new identities for people our family's enemies were trying to find.”
Rachel frowned.
“People like Isabella?”
“Yes.”
“Why would your father hide his wife?”
“Because he believed he'd gotten her killed.”
Rachel waited.
Nathan explained that Isabella had uncovered evidence of illegal business dealings involving several powerful associates of the DeLuca family.
When she threatened to expose them, threats followed.
Dominic arranged for her disappearance.
A staged death.
A different name.
A lifetime away from her children.
Rachel felt sick.
“Nathan was seven,” she said softly, realizing what that meant.
Nathan looked at her.
“I was told my mother was dead.”
“And she let you believe it?”
His expression hardened.
“I haven't forgiven her.”
Rachel glanced at the drawing.
“Then why are you helping her?”
“Because there's a difference between wanting answers and wanting someone dead.”
He told Rachel about the necklace.
The blue stone concealed a tiny metal compartment.
Inside was a storage reference connected to the original evidence Isabella had collected.
But the necklace had changed hands several times.
And the woman wearing it tonight was Vanessa Harrington.
“Vanessa knows?” Rachel asked.
“Some of it.”
“Why would she help someone hurt Alexander?”
Nathan stared at his hands.
“Because somebody convinced her that Alexander was responsible for her father's death.”
Rachel remembered Vanessa's cruel behavior.
The insults.
The threats.
The deliberate pressure on her injured ankle.
“Her father died in a car crash.”
“That's what she was told.”
Rachel studied Nathan carefully.
“You sound like you believe she's innocent.”
“I believe someone has been feeding her lies.”
He paused.
“But that doesn't excuse what she did to you.”
A faint mechanical hum came from the hallway.
Nathan glanced at the door.
The lock had just disengaged.
A woman entered.
Vanessa.
Without the ballroom lighting, she looked older and far less certain of herself.
Her diamond necklace was gone.
Rachel stood.
“Where's Oliver?”
Vanessa stopped.
“Your son is safe.”
“Where?”
“At St. Catherine's pediatric rehabilitation center. The night nurse is with him.”
Rachel recognized the facility.
Oliver had been receiving therapy there since his surgery.
“You brought him into this?”
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“I didn't take him anywhere. Someone sent me photographs of him this afternoon.”
Rachel's voice shook.
“You threatened me with him.”
“I know.”
“Then don't stand there crying like you're the victim.”
Vanessa accepted the words without arguing.
Nathan rose.
“What happened at the mansion?”
Vanessa looked at him.
“The second chandelier didn't fall.”
“Why not?”
“I stopped it.”
Nathan went still.
“You had the remote?”
Vanessa nodded.
“I thought the mechanism would frighten Alexander into leaving the ballroom. That's what they told me. But when I saw Eleanor standing beneath it—”
She swallowed.
“I realized they were willing to kill people.”
Rachel stared at her.
“You knew someone tampered with the chandeliers.”
“I knew they would drop slightly. I didn't know the safety bolt had been weakened.”
“And you still forced me underneath one.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Nathan turned away in disgust.
Rachel felt no satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
“Who is ‘they’?” she asked.
Vanessa reached into her handbag and removed a folded invitation.
An invitation to her own engagement party.
On the back was a handwritten instruction.
Keep Alexander in the ballroom until the song begins.
Beneath it was a symbol Rachel recognized.
A blue star.
Nathan's face drained.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father's old business partner.”
“Name?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“Arthur Bell.”
Nathan stepped backward.
Rachel saw genuine fear cross his face.
“Arthur Bell died seventeen years ago.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“He's alive. He's the one who told me what Alexander did.”
Across Queens, Alexander arrived outside the clinic.
Thomas's security team had identified a private exit.
They could enter without alarming patients.
Alexander approached the rear corridor.
Through a narrow window, he saw Rachel.
Nathan stood beside her.
Vanessa faced them both.
Alexander pushed open the door.
“Get away from her.”
Everyone turned.
Nathan looked stunned.
“Alex.”
For eight months, Alexander had imagined finding his brother dead.
Now Nathan was standing ten feet away.
Alive.
And Alexander didn't know whether to embrace him or demand an explanation.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
Nathan opened his mouth.
Then a voice came from behind Alexander.
“Don't blame him.”
A silver-haired woman stepped into the corridor.
Isabella DeLuca.
Alexander had never heard her voice in person.
Yet something about it was painfully familiar.
She looked past him toward Nathan.
“My son,” she whispered.
Nathan didn't move.
Alexander turned slowly.
Isabella reached for his hand.
But he pulled away.
“You let him mourn you for twenty-five years.”
Tears gathered in her eyes.
“I know.”
Before she could say more, the clinic's emergency alarm began sounding.
Thomas checked his radio.
“Alexander, we've got a problem.”
He held up his phone.
A live image showed Oliver Collins sitting alone in a wheelchair outside his rehabilitation room.
A man in a dark coat stood behind him.
In the man's hand was a folded blue-star drawing.
A second image showed the man's face.
Vanessa gasped.
“Arthur.”
Nathan grabbed the phone.
“That isn't Arthur Bell.”
Alexander looked at him.
May you like
Nathan's voice became almost inaudible.
“That's the man who tried to kill our mother.”
