Chapter 10 - ISABELLA'S CONTRACT
Grace was already calling the estate before Vincent finished saying Isabella's name.
Marco's deputy answered on the first ring.
"Where is Emily?"
"Safe suite."
"With Isabella?"
"Yes."
Grace's voice sharpened.
"Open the door and get my daughter out."
The deputy hesitated.
"The door is locked from the inside."
Grace stood so quickly her seat belt snapped tight across her waist.
"What?"
"Ms. Romano activated the internal lock seven minutes ago."
Vincent leaned toward the phone.
"Why?"
"She said someone was in the service wall behind the morning room."
Marco swore under his breath.
The Moretti estate was old enough to have passages no modern security plan fully accounted for.
Some had been built for servants.
Others had been built for reasons the family rarely discussed.
Vincent had sealed most of them when he renovated the house.
Most was not all.
"Can you hear anything inside?" Grace asked.
"No."
"Call Emily's phone."
"She does not have one."
Grace shut her eyes in frustration.
Then Vincent's phone rang again.
This time the caller ID showed ISABELLA.
He answered immediately.
"Where is Emily?"
Isabella whispered.
"Beside me."
Grace grabbed the phone.
"Put her on."
A soft rustling sound followed.
Then Emily whispered, "Mom?"
Grace almost folded over with relief.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Why are you whispering?"
"Because Isabella says somebody is outside the wall."
Grace looked at Vincent.
"Stay away from the door."
"We are in the bathroom."
"Good."
"There is a big chair in front of it."
Despite everything, Marco nearly smiled.
"That was Isabella's idea?"
"Mine."
Grace closed her eyes briefly.
"Of course it was."
Isabella came back on the line.
"Vincent, Dominic is lying to you."
Vincent's expression hardened.
"He says the same about you."
"Then one of us is very convenient for Charles right now."
"Why did you lock the room?"
"Because I heard the panel behind the bookcase move."
"How did you know there was a panel?"
Isabella went silent.
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
"Answer me."
"Celeste told me about it."
Grace stared at the phone.
"You said you barely spoke to your sister before she died."
"I said she stopped coming home."
"That is not the same thing."
"No."
Isabella inhaled slowly.
"I have not told you everything."
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"That sentence is becoming a disease in my house."
"I know."
"Start now."
A faint scrape sounded through Isabella's phone.
She stopped speaking.
Emily breathed near the microphone.
Then a heavy thump came from outside their bathroom.
Grace's face went white.
"Isabella?"
No answer.
Another thump.
Then Isabella whispered, "They are trying the safe-suite door."
Vincent looked at Marco.
Marco was already speaking to his deputy on a second phone.
"West safe suite, breach protocol, now."
Boots thundered faintly through Isabella's line.
A man's voice shouted from outside the room.
"Security."
Isabella did not open the bathroom.
"Code?" she called.
The guard answered, "Hudson six."
Isabella looked at Emily.
"What did your mother tell you?"
Emily whispered, "Only Marco's deputy or you."
Isabella almost laughed despite the fear.
"Then we wait for the deputy."
Seconds later another voice identified himself through the door.
The correct counter-code followed.
Isabella moved the chair.
The guards entered.
Marco's deputy took Emily personally.
Grace stayed on the call until she heard her daughter's voice in the corridor.
Only then did she sit back.
"Who was in the passage?" Vincent asked.
The deputy answered through Marco's phone.
"Nobody by the time we got there."
"Entry point?"
"Panel behind the morning-room bookcase was open."
"Tracks?"
"One person."
"Direction?"
"Toward the old chapel stair."
Vincent closed his eyes.
The chapel stair connected to the west carriage house.
The same carriage house Dominic had used to escape.
Marco looked at him.
"Could have been Dominic."
Grace shook her head.
"Or somebody who wanted us to think that."
Vincent stared at his phone.
"Put Isabella under guard, but do not restrain her."
The deputy acknowledged.
"And get Emily into the central security room."
"Yes, sir."
Vincent looked toward the black night beyond the jet window.
"We land in twenty-three minutes."
Marco checked the flight tracker.
"Twenty-one."
Vincent called Isabella back.
She answered immediately.
"Emily is safe."
"Tell me about Celeste."
Silence.
"Now."
Isabella's voice lost its polished calm.
"Three years ago Celeste called me from Vermont."
Vincent's eyes sharpened.
"When?"
"About a month after Sofia disappeared."
"And you never told me."
"I did not know you then."
"What did she say?"
"She said she had taken a job helping private patients."
"At Saint Agnes."
"She never named it."
"Did she mention Sofia?"
"Not by name."
Isabella paused.
"She said there was a woman there whose husband had been tricked into signing something terrible."
Grace's hand tightened around the armrest.
"What else?"
"She said the woman was not sick."
Vincent's face hardened.
"And you did nothing."
"I asked where she was."
"What did Celeste say?"
"She hung up."
Isabella breathed out.
"Two weeks later, Charles Bellamy contacted me for the first time."
"Why?"
"He said Celeste had named me as emergency family contact for her medical bills."
"Which gave him a reason to meet you."
"Yes."
"And after that?"
"He helped settle her debts."
Vincent laughed bitterly.
"With money stolen from my trust."
"I did not know that."
"What did he want in return?"
Isabella did not answer immediately.
Grace looked at Vincent.
He already knew there was an answer.
"Isabella."
"He wanted me to meet you."
Vincent went completely still.
Grace stared at the phone.
"Your relationship was arranged."
"At first."
Vincent's voice became low.
"Explain."
"Charles knew you had stopped attending most public events after Sofia vanished."
"He said you needed someone who would not push you."
"He gave me invitations to two charities where he knew you would appear."
"The first time we met was not an accident."
Vincent looked sick rather than angry.
"The museum fundraiser."
"Yes."
"You spilled champagne on me."
"That part actually was an accident."
Grace would have laughed in another life.
No one laughed now.
Vincent continued.
"And the second meeting?"
"Arranged."
"Third?"
"Arranged."
"When did you stop following his plan?"
Isabella was quiet for a long moment.
"When I started caring whether you came home angry or tired."
Vincent looked away.
"That is not an answer I can verify."
"I know."
"Did Charles tell you to marry me?"
"Yes."
Grace closed her eyes.
Vincent's voice stayed almost unnaturally calm.
"When?"
"Six months ago."
"Why?"
"He said marriage would stabilize the family companies and stop rumors that Sofia might return."
"Did he mention the continuity trust?"
"Not until two weeks ago."
"What did he say?"
"He said there would be paperwork giving me temporary authority if anything happened to you."
Vincent's gaze moved to the gray-tabbed documents in his memory.
"Did that not seem strange?"
"It seemed like rich-family legal nonsense."
Grace almost smiled at the phrase.
Vincent did not.
"Why did you agree?"
Isabella's voice dropped.
"Because Charles told me Celeste had not died instantly in Switzerland."
Vincent frowned.
"What?"
"He said she had survived long enough to leave a sealed statement."
"He promised I could have it after the engagement contract was signed."
Grace stared at the phone.
"He used your sister to make you sign."
"Yes."
"And you never told Vincent."
"No."
Vincent shut his eyes.
"Why not?"
Isabella's answer was almost too quiet to hear.
"Because by then I had already lied to you about how we met."
The truth sat between them with all the weight of betrayal and none of the simplicity.
Vincent could not decide whether Isabella had been planted beside him, trapped beside him, or both.
The jet began descending.
Marco buckled his seat belt.
"We need to decide what we do with her when we land."
Vincent looked at the phone.
"Isabella, go to the security room with Emily."
"Vincent."
"Do not leave it."
"I can help."
"Then start with the letters Celeste sent you."
"They are in Manhattan."
"Give Marco the address and safe code."
A pause.
"You do not trust me to get them myself."
"No."
Isabella absorbed that without protest.
"All right."
The plane touched down twenty minutes later.
Before Vincent reached the estate, Marco's Manhattan team had entered Isabella's apartment with her permission and found the letters exactly where she said they would be.
They photographed every page and sent encrypted copies.
Vincent read them in the back seat of the SUV.
Most were ordinary.
Celeste complained about cold weather.
She asked whether Isabella still burned tomato sauce.
She remembered their mother's birthday.
Then, in the fifth letter, one sentence broke the pattern.
Do not believe a locked door is for the patient's safety just because a doctor holds the key.
The sixth letter mentioned the woman in Room Seventeen.
The seventh said nothing about Saint Agnes at all.
It contained only a drawing of a white rose.
Behind the flower, Celeste had written four words.
THE ORCHARD IS BELOW.
Vincent stared at the message.
Grace leaned over.
"What orchard?"
Marco looked up from his tablet.
"There is an abandoned apple orchard above River Site B."
May you like
Vincent folded the letter.
"Then that is where we go next."
