Chapter 3 - The Vanishing Trail
Charles stared down at the torn pieces of paper on the floor as if they were live embers.
"What lab, Damian?"
His voice dropped into a dangerous register that discarded all pretense of grandfatherly warmth.
"What ridiculous game are you playing?"
Damian raised his right hand.
Between his fingers rested the white linen handkerchief, saturated with Isabella's fresh blood.
"Dr. Vance is waiting in his private office downtown."
"He still holds the original tissue samples from the Route 9 accident report."
"My father made sure every key employee had genetic material registered with family security."
"In four hours, I will know whether this blood belongs to Maria Rossi’s child."
Charles's jaw worked silently for three seconds before he found his tongue.
"You are desecrating the memory of dead people to feed your paranoia."
"Maria Rossi was a traitor who tried to blackmail your father on his deathbed."
"If she survived that fire, she belongs in federal prison, not in this house."
Isabella stood up from the sofa, her voice sharp with sudden indignation.
"My mother was not a blackmailer."
Both men turned to look at her.
Isabella did not lower her chin this time.
"I don't know who you people are, and I don't care about your family billions."
"All my life, I had nothing."
"I ate expired food in foster basements because nobody wanted an extra mouth."
"I worked two shifts a day just to pay for my community college books."
"The only thing I owned was the belief that my mother loved me before she died."
"Do not stand in front of me and call her a criminal."
Damian watched her with an unreadable expression.
In the faint light of the library, her defiance was an exact mirror of the woman who used to run his father’s books.
Charles sneered, turning his disgust away from Damian toward the girl.
"You have her insolence, whoever you are."
"Damian, the board is waiting for you in the conservatory."
"If you abandon your post tonight, the merger with the Cole family collapses."
"You cannot sacrifice twenty years of family dominance for a catering girl's ghost."
Damian looked at his platinum watch.
"I will be down in ten minutes."
He turned to the internal intercom on his desk and pressed the brass button.
"Marcus."
The voice of his head of security responded instantly through the speaker.
"Yes, Mr. Moretti."
"Escort Miss Rossi to the private guest cottage behind the rose garden."
"Post two men at the door."
"She is a guest of the house, not a prisoner, but she does not leave the perimeter."
"Understood, sir."
Damian looked back at Isabella.
"Wait in the cottage."
"I will come to you the moment Dr. Vance delivers the test results."
"Do not speak to anyone else."
Isabella felt a knot of dread tighten around her ribs.
"I have a life, Mr. Moretti."
"I have a shift at a diner at six tomorrow morning."
"If you miss it, I will buy the diner and give you the deed," Damian replied flatly.
"Stay where I put you."
Before Isabella could argue, Marcus entered the library with a quiet, lethal presence.
He was a man in his forties with cropped grey hair and cold, calculating eyes.
"Miss Rossi, this way please."
Isabella cast one last glance at Charles Moretti.
The old man was watching her with an expression of pure, unadulterated venom.
She followed Marcus down the back service staircase, avoiding the main gala completely.
They exited through a side entrance into the cool night air of the estate gardens.
The scent of damp earth and crushed boxwood filled the dark breezeway.
Marcus walked two paces ahead, his hand resting casually inside his jacket near his holster.
They reached the cobblestone path that led toward the private guest cottage.
Suddenly, an older woman stepped out from the shadows of the greenhouse archway.
It was Mrs. Gable, the chief housekeeper who had hired Isabella three weeks ago.
Mrs. Gable was holding Isabella’s canvas jacket and personal handbag.
"Marcus, Mr. Charles instructed me to handle this."
Mrs. Gable’s voice was clipped and nervous.
Marcus stopped on the path.
"Mr. Damian ordered her to the guest cottage."
Mrs. Gable pulled an official laminated estate envelope from her apron.
"Mr. Charles overrode it through the family trust council."
"The girl is fired for creating a public disturbance in front of the Senator."
"Her personal effects are here, along with her termination severance."
"I am escorting her directly to the service gate."
Marcus hesitated, caught between the conflicting commands of two Moretti patriarchs.
Isabella didn't wait for them to resolve their family war.
The cold truth struck her like an open hand across the face.
Damian wanted answers, but Charles wanted her erased.
If she stayed trapped inside the high walls of this estate, she might never see the sunrise.
She reached out and snatched her canvas jacket and bag from Mrs. Gable’s hands.
"I don't need your cottage, and I don't need your severance."
Isabella turned toward the heavy wrought-iron service gate twenty yards away.
"Miss Rossi, wait," Marcus called out, stepping toward her.
"Do not touch me!"
Isabella ran.
Her worn flats slapped against the damp cobblestones with frantic urgency.
She slipped through the unlocked service turnstile that the delivery trucks used.
The dark public road stretched out before her, flanked by towering maple trees.
Behind her, she heard Marcus shouting into his radio.
She didn't look back.
She sprinted down the long asphalt incline toward the city bus stop two miles away.
The rain began to fall in thin, freezing needles from the black sky.
She clutched her handbag against her ribs, her breath tearing through her throat in ragged gasps.
Ten minutes later, she reached the illuminated glass shelter of the bus terminal.
Her uniform was soaked through.
Her temple was bleeding again, the red drops mixing with the rainwater on her collar.
She boarded the late-night municipal bus that ran toward the industrial district of North River.
She dropped three crumpled dollar bills into the fare box and walked to the very back seat.
She pressed her forehead against the vibrating, cold windowpane.
As the heavy bus pulled away from the curb, Isabella looked into the side mirror.
A sleek black sedan with dark tinted windows slid out from the tree line.
May you like
It kept a steady distance of fifty feet behind the bus.
Its headlights were turned completely off.
