Chapter 4 - Isabella's Last Secret
Peter Lang looked nothing like the frightened fugitive I had imagined.
He looked worse.
He sat inside an old sedan at the far end of a nearly empty church parking lot, shoulders hunched, beard grown unevenly, eyes constantly moving toward the road.
Vincent and I approached alone.
Peter lowered the window.
“You came.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You disappeared.”
“I wanted to live.”
“My sons were still in that house.”
Peter flinched.
“I know.”
Vincent's anger was immediate.
I touched his arm.
“Let him talk.”
Peter looked at me.
“Claire Morgan.”
I felt cold.
“How did you know my name?”
He unlocked the car.
“Get in.”
Vincent sat in the front.
I took the back.
Peter handed me an envelope.
Inside was a photocopied page.
My name appeared halfway down.
CLAIRE MORGAN.
Next to it was an old address.
Below that were several other names.
“What is this?”
“I found it in Blake's temporary office.”
“Why was he researching me?”
Peter shook his head.
“I don't think he was.”
He handed Vincent another page.
At the top was a name.
ISABELLA MORETTI.
Vincent stopped breathing for a moment.
“My wife?”
Peter nodded.
“The list belonged to her.”
Vincent looked at him sharply.
“That makes no sense.”
Peter explained.
Years earlier, before Isabella died, she had quietly investigated irregularities involving the family foundation.
“She believed money was being moved through medical charities,” Peter said.
Vincent's face hardened.
“She never told me.”
“Maybe she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of whoever she was investigating.”
I looked at the list again.
“Why my name?”
Peter pointed toward the old address.
“Did you know a woman named Evelyn Morgan?”
“My mother.”
“Was she a nurse?”
“Yes.”
Peter looked at Vincent.
“Mrs. Moretti contacted her.”
I felt as though the floor had shifted beneath me.
“My mother died five years ago.”
“Then she took the answer with her.”
“Answer to what?”
Peter handed me a photocopy of an old letter.
The handwriting was feminine.
Evelyn, if anything happens to me, the children must never be placed under Harrison's exclusive care.
Vincent read it twice.
His hands began trembling.
“That is Isabella's handwriting.”
The sentence continued.
There are things about the foundation Vincent doesn't know. I need someone outside the family who will recognize the signs if the same pattern begins again.
I couldn't speak.
My mother had known Isabella Moretti.
And never told me.
Peter said Blake apparently discovered the old correspondence while searching through archived foundation records.
“He knew Isabella trusted your mother. Then he learned Evelyn had a daughter working in caregiving.”
“So why hire me?”
“I don't think Blake did.”
Vincent looked at me.
“Mrs. Harper recommended you.”
The realization hit both of us.
Mrs. Harper.
We drove back immediately.
She was waiting in the sitting room.
When Vincent placed Isabella's letter on the table, the older woman began crying.
“You knew,” he said.
Mrs. Harper nodded.
“Isabella made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
“To find Claire if the boys ever became sick in a way nobody could explain.”
I stared at her.
“You brought me here deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know whom to trust.”
Vincent laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“My wife didn't trust me.”
Mrs. Harper looked at him.
“She loved you.”
“That's not what I said.”
“She was protecting you.”
Vincent's expression tightened.
“From what?”
Mrs. Harper opened a small wooden box.
Inside was a key.
“From your brother.”
Adrian Moretti arrived at the mansion the following afternoon.
Vincent hadn't invited him.
That alone told us someone had warned him.
Adrian was forty-three, polished, charming, and calm.
He walked into Vincent's office as if nothing were wrong.
“I heard the boys were improving.”
Vincent didn't ask how he knew.
“They are.”
“Thank God.”
Adrian smiled at me.
“You must be Claire.”
I didn't return the smile.
“You know me?”
“Everyone seems to be talking about you.”
“That's interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because people were apparently talking about me before I arrived.”
For the first time, his smile weakened.
Vincent noticed.
Adrian turned toward him.
“What's this about?”
Vincent placed the trust documents on the desk.
“Family.”
Adrian looked down.
Then back up.
“I don't understand.”
“If my sons die, your foundation gains control of a significant portion of the holdings.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“Careful.”
“I'm being very careful.”
“You think I would hurt Lucas and Leo?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
The brothers stared at each other.
Then Adrian said something that surprised us.
“You're looking at the wrong Moretti.”
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
“There are only two of us.”
“No.”
Adrian looked toward Isabella's letter.
“There was another person with access to the foundation.”
“Who?”
“Isabella.”
Vincent moved so quickly that I barely saw it.
He stopped inches from Adrian.
“Don't.”
Adrian didn't back away.
“You want the truth? Then stop turning your dead wife into a saint long enough to hear it.”
Vincent's face became dangerous.
I stepped forward.
“Adrian, explain.”
He looked at me.
“The foundation wasn't Isabella's project originally.”
“Whose was it?”
“Our father's.”
Vincent slowly stepped back.
Adrian continued.
“The financial irregularities began before Isabella married Vincent.”
“Then why was she investigating them?”
“Because she discovered them.”
“Who controlled the accounts?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Dr. Blake's father.”
Harrison Blake's father had served as the Moretti family's private physician and financial trustee decades earlier.
Suddenly the connection wasn't eleven months old.
It was generational.
Adrian claimed Isabella discovered that medical charities were being used to hide diverted family money.
“She wanted to expose it,” he said. “I helped her.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Because you were taking over the family. She believed if you knew too early, you'd confront everyone.”
Adrian glanced at me.
“She was probably right.”
Vincent didn't argue.
“What happened to her?” I asked.
Both brothers became silent.
Officially, Isabella had died after a sudden illness.
I felt a chill.
“What were her symptoms?”
Vincent looked at me.
I could see the answer forming before he spoke.
“Fatigue.”
Nobody moved.
“Pain.”
Adrian's face changed.
Vincent continued.
“Difficulty concentrating.”
The same room.
The same silence.
The same realization.
“Weight loss,” Vincent whispered.
I looked toward the ceiling.
Toward the ventilation system hidden behind the walls.
Isabella's death had happened four years earlier.
Lucas and Leo's symptoms had begun eighteen months ago.
Two separate illnesses.
Same family.
Similar symptoms.
And the same doctor had been connected to both generations.
Harrison Blake.
But before we could say anything else, Mrs. Harper rushed into the office.
“Mr. Moretti.”
She was pale.
“What?”
“The boys.”
Vincent was moving before she finished.
We ran upstairs.
Lucas and Leo were not in their guest room.
The beds were empty.
The bathroom was empty.
Their shoes were gone.
Vincent's face became terrifyingly still.
“Security.”
Marco answered instantly.
Then his voice came through the phone.
“The east gate opened four minutes ago.”
“For whom?”
A pause.
“Dr. Blake's vehicle.”
Vincent looked at me.
Blake had entered the property without being announced.
And now the twins were missing.
But on Lucas's pillow lay one small black toy car.
Underneath it was a folded piece of paper.
I opened it.
Three words had been written in a child's shaky handwriting.
CLAIRE, WE HID.
I stared at Vincent.
“They're still here.”
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And somewhere inside the enormous Moretti mansion, two frightened seven-year-old boys were hiding from the doctor their father had trusted for almost a year.
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