A 40-year-old billionaire had spent more than three million dollars trying to understand why his twin sons kept getting weaker
PART 2
Mrs. Harper bent so quickly to gather the fallen towels that she nearly struck her head against the hallway table.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
But her hands betrayed her.
They were trembling.
Not the slight nervous tremor of someone embarrassed by dropping laundry.
She was afraid.
I looked from her to the decorative ventilation grate between Lucas and Leo’s bedrooms.
“Mrs. Harper,” I said carefully, “what comes through that vent?”
“Nothing.”
The answer came too fast.
Vincent noticed it too.
His voice changed immediately.
“Margaret.”
Mrs. Harper froze.
Until that moment, I hadn’t known her first name.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, she lifted her eyes.
“I don’t know anything, Mr. Moretti.”
Then a cough came from inside Lucas’s bedroom.
Weak.
Dry.
Painfully small.
Every adult in the hallway turned.
I opened the door.
Lucas and Leo were sitting together near the headboard, surrounded by pillows and expensive toys they clearly didn’t have the energy to touch.
They were identical twins, but I could already see differences.
Lucas watched everything.
Leo watched people.
Both boys were too pale.
Too thin.
And far too tired for seven-year-olds at four in the afternoon.
Lucas gave me a tiny smile.
“Are you Claire?”
“I am.”
“Our new nanny?”
“That depends. Are you accepting applications?”
Leo almost smiled.
Lucas nodded solemnly.
“We fired the last one.”
Vincent frowned.
“You did not.”
“She cried too much,” Leo said.
“She cried because you locked her phone in the aquarium cabinet.”
“She kept talking while we were sleeping.”
Despite everything, Vincent’s mouth twitched.
For half a second, he looked less like a billionaire and more like an exhausted father trying to remember
what normal life felt like.
Then Leo tilted his head.
“Do you smell the flowers?”
The smile vanished.
I crouched beside the bed.
“What flowers?”
“The hallway flowers.”
“There aren’t any flowers in the hallway,” Vincent said.
Lucas looked at his father.
“Yes, there are.”
“No,” Leo corrected his brother. “Not real ones.”
I felt the hairs rise along my arms.
“When do you smell them?”
The twins looked at each other.
Lucas answered first.
“At night.”
“Every night?”
“No.”
“Sometimes after everyone goes downstairs,” Leo whispered.
Lucas rubbed one thin wrist.
“Sometimes it wakes me up.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“You’ve smelled something coming through the vents?”
Both boys nodded.
His expression went frighteningly still.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We did,” Lucas said.
Vincent stared at him.
“When?”
“Dr. Blake said it was probably because our medicine makes smells weird.”
My eyes moved toward Vincent.
His jaw tightened.
“What medicine?”
Lucas pointed toward a tray beside the bed.
There were vitamin bottles, prescription containers, electrolyte powders and supplements arranged with almost military precision.
I walked over.
“Who gives these to you?”
“Dr. Blake changes them sometimes,” Leo said.
“Mrs. Harper gives us the morning ones.”
“And the evening ones?”
A pause.
Lucas looked toward the door.
“Sometimes Dr. Blake.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Vincent took out his phone.
“Security. Second floor. Now.”
Within minutes, the quiet luxury of the mansion had transformed.
Vincent’s security chief, Adrian Cole, arrived with two men from the estate maintenance team.
Vincent pointed at the ventilation grate.
“Shut down everything feeding this wing.”
Adrian hesitated.
“The HVAC?”
“Everything.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That was the first time I heard real fear in Vincent Moretti’s voice.
The system powered down.
The gentle rush of conditioned air disappeared.
Silence settled over the hallway.
One maintenance technician removed the decorative grate.
Behind it was ordinary ductwork.
At first.
He shone a flashlight inside.
Then frowned.
“There’s something here.”
He reached farther.
A moment later, he pulled out a narrow transparent plastic tube.
Vincent stared at it.
“What the hell is that?”
The technician examined the line.
“Not part of the original vent.”
“Original according to what?”
“According to any system I’ve ever installed.”
He tugged gently.
The tube disappeared deeper into the wall.
Adrian immediately called for the estate blueprints.
Mrs. Harper backed away.
I saw it.
A tiny movement.
But enough.
“You recognize it,” I said.
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You do.”
Vincent turned toward her.
“What is going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
His voice cracked across the corridor.
The twins flinched inside the bedroom.
I turned to Vincent.
“Not here.”
He looked at his sons, then forced himself to calm down.
“Adrian, take the boys downstairs.”
“No,” Lucas protested.
“Dad—”
“Just for a little while.”
I touched Lucas’s shoulder.
“Go with Mr. Cole. Get some water. Stay somewhere with open windows.”
Leo looked at me.
“Are we in trouble?”
“No.”
“Is Dad?”
That question nearly broke Vincent.
I answered before he could.
“Your father is trying to make sure you’re safe.”
The boys left.
Then the search began.
The hidden tubing ran behind the wall, down through a service cavity and into a narrow corridor used by
housekeeping staff.
The mansion had apparently been renovated multiple times, leaving old passages, storage spaces and maintenance access points hidden behind the polished surface.
We followed the line to a locked utility cabinet.
The maintenance man tried a master key.
Nothing.
Vincent held out his hand.
“Move.”
He picked up a heavy brass fire extinguisher from the wall and slammed it into the lock.
Once.
Twice.
On the third strike, the latch shattered.
The door swung open.
mated dispenser connected to several plastic reservoirs.
Three small bottles were mounted upside down above a timer unit.
No labels.
No manufacturer markings.
No maintenance sticker.
No obvious reason for any of it to exist.
Mrs. Harper made a strangled sound.
Vincent turned.
She was crying.
“Call the police,” he said.
“No!”
Everyone stared at her.
She covered her mouth.
But it was too late.
Vincent walked toward her.
“Why not?”
Her eyes darted toward the machine.
“He’ll know.”
“Who?”
She shook her head.
“Who will know, Margaret?”
“I can’t.”
“You have lived in this house for fourteen years.”
“I know.”
“You held my sons when they were born.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I know.”
“Then tell me who has been doing this.”
Footsteps sounded behind us.
A familiar voice spoke from the doorway.
“You should not have opened that cabinet.”
Dr. Harrison Blake stood at the end of the corridor.
His medical bag hung from one hand.
His face was gray.
Vincent moved so quickly that Adrian barely intercepted him.
“You.”
Blake raised both hands.
“Vincent, listen.”
“What did you put in my sons’ rooms?”
“I didn’t install it.”
“You knew it existed.”
“I knew something existed.”
“That is not an answer!”
Adrian put a firm hand against Vincent’s chest.
“Sir.”
Vincent was breathing hard.
Blake looked at the open dispenser.
Then at me.
For the first time, the arrogance was gone.
He looked terrified.
“That system predates me,” he said.
“You expect me to believe that?” Vincent snapped.
“You hired me eleven months ago. Look at the fittings. Look at the renovation date stamped inside the cabinet.”
The technician crouched.
A faded inspection plate was fixed behind the tubing.
He wiped dust from it.
“Installation permit code ends in twenty-two.”
Vincent frowned.
“2022?”
The man nodded.
Vincent’s face emptied.
Three years earlier.
Long before Blake had begun treating the twins.
I looked at the doctor.
“If you knew something was wrong, why didn’t you tell him?”
Blake swallowed.
“Because I didn’t know what it was.”
“Then how did you know not to open the cabinet?”
He stared at Mrs. Harper.
She looked away.
Vincent noticed.
“You two have discussed this.”
Neither answered.
His voice became quiet.
That was worse than shouting.
“Margaret.”
Mrs. Harper broke.
“Mrs. Moretti ordered the renovations.”
Vincent stared at her.
“Isabella?”
“Yes.”
The name hung in the air.
His dead wife.
The mother of his children.
Vincent took one slow step backward.
“No.”
“She redesigned the entire boys’ wing after they turned three.”
“I know she renovated it.”
“She supervised parts of it herself.”
“That doesn’t mean she installed this.”
“No,” Mrs. Harper whispered.
“But she knew about the hidden service line.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Impossible.”
Blake stepped forward.
“Vincent, there is something else you need to see.”
Vincent rounded on him.
“If you have withheld one more thing—”
“I didn’t understand it until today.”
Blake opened his medical bag and removed a sealed envelope.
He handed it to Vincent.
Inside was an old laboratory report.
Vincent read the first page.
His expression changed.
“What is this?”
“A toxicology screening.”
“From whom?”
“Isabella.”
Silence.
I leaned closer.
The report had been completed approximately four months before Isabella’s death.
Blake pointed to several highlighted values.
“She had traces of the same unusual metabolites that appeared in Lucas and Leo’s latest bloodwork.”
Vincent’s head snapped up.
“You told me those values were insignificant.”
“I told you they were unexplained.”
“You said they could be dietary.”
“I was wrong.”
Vincent grabbed Blake by the front of his coat.
Adrian moved forward, but Blake didn’t resist.
“You had this report?”
“I found it six weeks ago.”
“Six weeks?”
“I didn’t know whether it was authentic.”
“You should have told me!”
“Yes.”
Blake’s voice cracked.
“I should have.”
That admission stopped Vincent more effectively than denial would have.
He released him.
“Where did you find it?”
“In a box of archived medical documents delivered anonymously to my office.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
Mrs. Harper suddenly sat down against the wall.
“My God.”
I looked at her.
“You know.”
She covered her face.
“I thought she destroyed everything.”
Vincent slowly turned.
“What did Isabella destroy?”
Mrs. Harper remained silent.
He crouched in front of her.
“Margaret. My wife has been dead for four years. My sons have spent eighteen months getting weaker
while I flew them across the country begging strangers to save them.”
His voice dropped.
“If Isabella knew anything about this, I need the truth.”
Mrs. Harper looked up.
“She thought someone was poisoning her.”
No one moved.
Vincent’s face went blank.
“What?”
“About six months before the accident, Mrs. Moretti started feeling sick.”
Blake listened intently.
“She was tired,” Mrs. Harper continued. “Headaches. Nausea. Weakness. Some days she could barely stand.”
Vincent whispered, “She told me it was stress.”
“She didn’t want to frighten you.”
“That was what she said.”
“She lied.”
Vincent stared at the floor.
Mrs. Harper continued.
“She became convinced her symptoms were worse inside the house.”
My mind immediately went to the twins.
“Did she improve when she traveled?”
Mrs. Harper nodded.
“After two days away, yes.”
“Did she ever leave with the boys?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Several times.”
“And were they sick then?”
“No.”
The pattern was becoming impossible to ignore.
I looked at the dispenser.
“Maybe Isabella didn’t install this to release something into the boys’ rooms.”
Everyone turned toward me.
“Then why install it?” Vincent asked.
“What if we’re looking at the system backward?”
I pointed to the tubing.
“This could have been installed as a sampling line. Or an emergency filter. Or a delivery system intended for something protective.”
The technician crouched beside it.
“She could be right.”
Blake frowned.
“How?”
The man examined the valves.
“This upper junction has been modified. Originally, airflow could have been drawn out through here instead of pushed in.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning someone altered it.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“When?”
“I’d have to inspect everything.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“Do it.”
The technician removed part of the housing.
Under the newer plastic tubing was an older copper fitting.
He pointed toward a cut section.
“This is definitely aftermarket.”
“How recent?”
“Could be months. Could be two years.”
Vincent looked at Mrs. Harper.
“Who has access to this corridor?”
“Housekeeping. Maintenance. Security.”
“And doctors?” I asked.
She hesitated.
“Medical staff sometimes use the service entrance when the boys are sleeping.”
Blake shook his head.
“Not me.”
I believed that he believed himself.
But that wasn’t the same thing as innocence.
Adrian took photographs.
“We need to preserve the bottles.”
“Send them to three independent labs,” Vincent ordered.
Blake spoke quickly.
“No.”
Vincent stared at him.
Blake pointed toward the dispenser.
“If whoever did this learns that testing has started, they may disappear.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“You just told us to leave the cabinet closed.”
“Because I thought opening it would trigger something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
As if summoned by the words, a faint electronic beep came from inside the cabinet.
Everyone froze.
Another beep.
Then a tiny red light began blinking.
The technician leaned closer.
“That wasn’t on before.”
Adrian immediately stepped between the machine and the others.
“Everybody out.”
“What is it?” Vincent demanded.
“I don’t know. Move.”
We backed into the corridor.
The technician remained just close enough to inspect it.
Then he swore.
“It has a transmitter.”
“Transmitter to where?” Adrian asked.
“No idea.”
Blake went pale.
“It notified someone.”
Vincent’s phone rang.
Nobody spoke.
He looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
He answered.
“Moretti.”
Silence.
Then a distorted voice.
“You should have left your wife’s work buried.”
The call ended.
Vincent lowered the phone.
For several seconds, he seemed unable to breathe.
Adrian already had his own phone out.
“Trace it.”
One of his men hurried away.
I looked at Vincent.
“Your wife’s work?”
He said nothing.
Mrs. Harper began sobbing again.
This time, Vincent didn’t need to ask.
She reached into the pocket of her housekeeping apron and pulled out a small key.
Old brass.
Worn from years of being handled.
“I promised her.”
Vincent stared at it.
“What is that?”
“She gave it to me two weeks before the accident.”
“And you never told me?”
“She made me swear.”
“My wife is dead.”
Mrs. Harper looked at him through tears.
“She said if anything happened to her, I was not to give it to you until the boys became ill.”
Vincent went perfectly still.
“The boys became ill eighteen months ago.”
“I know.”
“Why did you wait?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of proving she was right.”
Mrs. Harper placed the key in his palm.
“Mrs. Moretti believed someone close to your family had been entering the house without appearing on the security logs.”
Adrian frowned.
“That isn’t possible.”
“She said the same thing.”
Mrs. Harper looked at him.
“Then she showed me footage.”
Adrian’s face changed.
“What footage?”
“Someone walking through the east corridor at 2:13 in the morning.”
“Who?”
“I never saw the face.”
“Why not?”
“They knew where every camera was.”
Vincent looked toward Adrian.
“How long have you been chief of security?”
“Five years.”
“And who installed the system before you?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Your corporate security division.”
“Which person?”
“I’d have to check.”
Mrs. Harper whispered, “Isabella already did.”
Vincent turned back to her.
“What did she find?”
“A name.”
“Whose?”
“She never told me.”
The brass key led us to the last place anyone expected.
Not a safe.
Not a bank box.
Not a hidden room.
The old greenhouse.
Isabella had loved gardening.
After her death, Vincent had locked the greenhouse and ordered the staff to leave it untouched.
By the time we reached it, evening rain had begun tapping softly against the glass.
Vines had spread across the interior.
Dead leaves covered the stone floor.
A child’s watering can still sat beside a wooden bench.
Vincent stopped at the entrance.
His face tightened.
“I haven’t been inside since her funeral.”
No one replied.
The brass key opened a narrow drawer beneath the potting table.
Inside was nothing except a photograph.
Vincent picked it up.
It showed Isabella standing beside Lucas and Leo when they were toddlers.
Behind them stood Vincent.
And beside Vincent was another man.
Blake leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
Vincent did not answer.
His fingers tightened around the photograph.
I turned it over.
Four words were written across the back.
HE HAS ACCESS TO EVERYTHING.
Below that was a date.
Three weeks before Isabella’s accident.
Adrian looked over Vincent’s shoulder.
Then he went pale.
Vincent noticed.
“You know him.”
Adrian didn’t answer.
“Who is he?”
The security chief swallowed.
“That’s your brother.”
Vincent’s eyes lifted slowly.
“Dominic?”
Until that moment, I hadn’t even known Vincent Moretti had a brother.
Mrs. Harper looked equally stunned.
“I thought he lived in Europe.”
“He does,” Vincent said.
But his voice lacked conviction.
Adrian stared at the photograph.
“Sir, Dominic Moretti was the executive overseeing the security division when this estate’s system was installed.”
The greenhouse seemed to shrink around us.
Vincent looked again at Isabella’s handwriting.
HE HAS ACCESS TO EVERYTHING.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Dominic and Isabella hated each other. That proves nothing.”
Blake asked, “Why did they hate each other?”
Vincent glanced at him.
“Business.”
“What kind of business?”
“My wife discovered irregularities in one of our family investment funds.”
“How large?”
Vincent didn’t answer immediately.
“Almost ninety million dollars.”
Even Blake went silent.
“She believed Dominic was moving money through medical technology companies,” Vincent continued. “Experimental environmental systems. Pharmaceutical startups. Ventilation patents.”
I looked toward him.
“Ventilation?”
Vincent’s eyes met mine.
“Yes.”
Before anyone could say more, Adrian’s radio crackled.
“Sir, we found a vehicle.”
“What vehicle?”
“Black sedan outside the north gate. No plates.”
Adrian immediately moved toward the greenhouse door.
“Lock down the property.”
The radio answered.
“It’s already moving.”
“Stop it.”
“We tried.”
A pause.
“Driver rammed the barrier.”
Adrian ran.
Vincent followed.
By the time we reached the front of the mansion, security vehicles were racing down the private road.
The black sedan disappeared beyond the gates.
No one caught it.
But the driver had left something behind.
A small padded envelope had been thrown from the passenger window.
It was addressed to Vincent.
Inside was a memory card.
Adrian insisted on opening it on an isolated laptop.
The first file was a video.
Isabella appeared on screen.
Alive.
Beautiful.
Terrified.
Vincent stopped breathing.
The date in the corner showed that the video had been recorded nine days before her death.
“If you’re watching this,” Isabella said, “then either I finally became brave enough to tell you everything…”
She paused.
“…or I didn’t survive long enough.”
Vincent gripped the edge of the desk.
Isabella looked directly into the camera.
“Vincent, I need you to understand something. The boys are not sick because of genetics. They are not sick because of grief. And if they ever begin showing the symptoms I showed, you must remove them from the estate immediately.”
Vincent whispered her name.
Isabella continued.
“I found evidence that someone has been testing airborne compounds inside the property.”
Blake’s face drained of color.
“Compounds designed to do what?” I whispered.
The answer came from Isabella.
“The doses are not intended to kill quickly.”
She looked down for a moment, fighting tears.
“They are designed to weaken cognition, reduce physical stamina and create symptoms that mimic multiple unrelated illnesses.”
Lucas and Leo.
Eighteen months of specialists.
Three million dollars.
No diagnosis.
Because perhaps there had never been one disease to diagnose.
Isabella looked toward something off camera.
Then back.
“I thought Dominic was responsible.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“But I was wrong.”
Every person in the room stopped moving.
Isabella leaned closer to the camera.
“The money leads through Dominic’s companies, but Dominic isn’t controlling the project.”
Vincent whispered, “Then who is?”
Isabella answered him across four years of death.
“The person responsible is inside our household.”
The screen suddenly filled with static.
Then returned.
Isabella’s next words were distorted.
“I found proof in the original security logs. The person accessing the boys’ wing is someone Vincent trusts completely.”
The image flickered again.
Then a photograph appeared.
A man stood inside the estate’s security room.
The face was blurred.
But the timestamp was clear.
2:13 a.m.
Exactly as Mrs. Harper had remembered.
A second image appeared.
Closer.
Still partially obscured.
The man was holding a medical case.
Dr. Blake whispered, “That isn’t mine.”
A third photograph loaded.
The figure turned.
For one second, his face became visible.
Vincent staggered backward.
Adrian said nothing.
Mrs. Harper screamed.
Because the man in the photograph was Adrian Cole.
The security chief standing beside us.
Vincent turned.
But Adrian already had a pistol in his hand.
“Everybody stay exactly where you are.”
Blake raised his hands.
Mrs. Harper began crying.
Vincent stared at the man who had protected his home for five years.
“Adrian.”
“I didn’t want the boys involved.”
“You poisoned my sons.”
“No.”
“You were in their wing.”
“Yes.”
“Then explain.”
Adrian’s eyes moved toward the screen.
“Isabella misunderstood what she saw.”
“She died nine days after recording this!”
“And I spent four years trying to figure out who killed her.”
Vincent froze.
“What?”
Adrian slowly lowered the gun toward the floor.
“I wasn’t putting anything into the ventilation system.”
He pointed at the image.
“I was removing it.”
No one spoke.
“That case contained filters,” he said. “Isabella hired me privately before I became your security chief.”
Vincent stared at him.
“She hired you?”
“She discovered someone had compromised the estate. She needed someone outside the family.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she didn’t trust you.”
The words struck Vincent like a fist.
Adrian continued.
“Not because she believed you were responsible. Because she believed whoever was doing this had access through your business network, your accounts, your staff, your relatives.”
“Then why point a gun at us?”
Adrian’s gaze shifted toward the window.
“Because the person who dropped off that memory card wanted you to see that photograph.”
My stomach tightened.
“You think this was staged.”
“I think someone wants Vincent to kill me before I can tell him what Isabella actually discovered.”
He placed the gun on the desk.
Then slowly kicked it toward Vincent.
“If I wanted any of you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Vincent picked up the weapon.
“Give me one reason not to call the police.”
Adrian met his eyes.
“Because the police report from Isabella’s accident was altered.”
Vincent went silent.
Adrian reached into his jacket.
Very slowly.
He removed a folded document.
“Three months ago, I located the first responder who pulled Isabella from the car.”
Vincent looked at the paper.
“What did he say?”
Adrian’s expression became grim.
“That Isabella was conscious.”
Vincent stared at him.
“No.”
“The official report says she died on impact.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t.”
Vincent’s lips parted.
Adrian continued.
“She survived the crash.”
Mrs. Harper whispered, “For how long?”
“Long enough to speak.”
Vincent’s voice was barely audible.
“What did she say?”
Adrian looked directly at him.
“She kept repeating one sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Adrian swallowed.
“‘Don’t let him take the boys.’”
The entire room went silent.
Vincent gripped the pistol.
“Who?”
“That’s what I’ve spent four years trying to determine.”
The isolated laptop suddenly chimed.
A second video file had automatically unlocked.
No one touched the keyboard.
The file opened by itself.
Isabella reappeared.
This recording was different.
She was crying.
Behind her was the greenhouse.
“Vincent,” she whispered, “if you ever see this, then Adrian failed to get me out.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Vincent stared at him.
Isabella continued.
“Do not blame him.”
That single sentence changed the room again.
“He was helping me.”
Adrian looked down.
“I found the person behind the testing,” Isabella said. “But the truth is worse than I imagined.”
The video glitched.
Her face froze.
Audio crackled.
Then came one final sentence.
“The boys were never the original targets.”
Vincent frowned.
“Then who was?”
The video resumed.
Isabella looked straight into the camera.
“You were, Vincent.”
His face went white.
“The compounds were designed to weaken you slowly. To make you confused. Dependent. Easy to control.”
She wiped her eyes.
“But something changed. The exposure reached Lucas and Leo instead.”
Vincent sank into a chair.
All the money.
The doctors.
The sleepless nights.
The collapsing children.
Perhaps they had been collateral damage in an attack meant for their father.
Isabella continued.
“And the person behind it knew the layout of this house before I ever moved in.”
Vincent whispered, “Dominic.”
Isabella shook her head on the screen.
“No.”
Another file opened beside the video.
A building blueprint.
Adrian leaned toward it.
“This isn’t the renovation plan.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He zoomed in.
The blueprint was dated eleven years earlier.
Before Isabella.
Before the twins.
Before Vincent had even purchased the estate.
Yet the hidden service corridor was already marked.
So was the ventilation route.
And beside the boys’ future bedrooms was a handwritten note.
PRIMARY EXPOSURE CHAMBERS.
Blake stepped backward.
“This house was built for it.”
Vincent looked physically sick.
“No. I bought the estate from a development company.”
Adrian examined the document.
“Who owned the company?”
Vincent stared at the screen.
Then his expression changed.
He knew.
“Dominic?”
“No.”
His voice became faint.
“My father.”
The room seemed to stop breathing.
Vincent Moretti’s father had died twelve years earlier.
At least according to every public record.
Adrian slowly looked at him.
“Vincent…”
But another file was already opening.
A surveillance photograph.
Recent.
Dated three days earlier.
An older man stood outside a private terminal in New Jersey.
Silver hair.
Black coat.
A cane in one hand.
Vincent rose from his chair so abruptly it fell backward.
“No.”
Mrs. Harper gasped.
I stared at the face.
The resemblance to Vincent was unmistakable.
Vincent whispered the name like he was seeing a ghost.
“Salvatore.”
His father.
The supposedly dead founder of the Moretti empire.
At the bottom of the photograph was one line of text.
HE NEVER DIED.
Then Vincent’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered without speaking.
An old man’s voice came through the speaker.
Calm.
Almost affectionate.
“Hello, son.”
Vincent’s knees nearly gave out.
The voice continued.
“You’ve spent three million dollars asking doctors the wrong question.”
Vincent gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
A quiet laugh.
“You should be asking why the boys only became sick eighteen months ago.”
I saw Blake’s expression change.
So did Adrian.
Because the meaning was immediate.
If the system had existed for years, something must have happened eighteen months earlier to activate it.
Vincent whispered, “What happened eighteen months ago?”
His father answered.
“That was when someone inside your house finally found what Isabella hid.”
The call ended.
For several seconds nobody moved.
Then Mrs. Harper slowly raised one trembling hand.
“There’s something else.”
Vincent turned toward her.
“What?”
She was staring toward the staircase.
“I never told anyone because I thought it was just something children say.”
“What did they say?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“About eighteen months ago, Lucas woke me in the middle of the night.”
“And?”
“He said there was a lady sitting beside his bed.”
Blake frowned.
“A lady?”
Mrs. Harper nodded.
“He said she smelled like lavender.”
My blood ran cold.
The floral smell.
The vents.
Vincent looked at her.
“What lady?”
Mrs. Harper’s face had gone completely pale.
“He said it was his mother.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
“Isabella?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“What exactly did Lucas say?”
Mrs. Harper looked directly at him.
“He said his mother came back to tell him something.”
Vincent’s voice cracked.
“What?”
Mrs. Harper whispered the words.
“She said, ‘Tell Daddy I’m still alive.’”
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