Chapter 2 - The Doctor Who Knew Too Much
I found Victor in the east medical wing at 7:12 the next morning.
He was reviewing Isabella’s latest scans.
He looked calm.
Too calm.
“You've been busy,” I said.
Victor turned.
“Adrian.”
“Did you ever tell me Isabella would never walk again?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because at the time, the scans indicated permanent neurological damage.”
“That isn't what I'm asking.”
He frowned.
“What are you asking?”
“Did you know about the scar tissue?”
He paused.
It lasted less than a second.
But I noticed.
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“Then why did you immediately tell the other doctors her condition was irreversible?”
“Because I had treated her since the night of the accident.”
“You treated my wife too.”
His face hardened.
“I'm sorry for your wife's death.”
“I didn't ask for sympathy.”
Victor put down the file.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
I threw Elena's note onto the table.
His eyes landed on it.
The color drained from his face.
“Where did you get that?”
That was enough.
I knew.
“You've seen it before.”
“No.”
“Then why did you recognize it?”
Victor reached for the paper.
I pulled it away.
“You lied to me.”
He shook his head.
“Adrian, you don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
He looked toward the hallway.
“Not here.”
We went into my office.
I shut the door.
Victor remained standing.
“Elena knew something about your organization.”
“What?”
“Something involving financial accounts.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in my organization knows about money.”
“Not these accounts.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
I stared at him.
“My wife discovered someone had been siphoning money through companies connected to your shipping empire.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-seven million dollars.”
My jaw tightened.
“Who?”
“We never identified the final beneficiary.”
“But Elena did.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't she tell me?”
“She tried.”
I remembered that night.
Elena had called me.
Three times.
I had ignored all three because I was dealing with a shipment dispute at the docks.
That memory had haunted me.
Victor continued.
“She told me she had evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“A ledger.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
I grabbed him by the collar.
“Where is it?”
Victor didn't fight me.
“Your wife hid it.”
“Where?”
“She said only someone innocent could find it.”
I released him.
“Why did you declare Isabella permanently paralyzed?”
Victor stared at the floor.
“I was afraid.”
“Of whom?”
“The man who arranged Elena's death.”
I froze.
“You knew it was murder.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Victor shook his head.
“I never saw his face.”
“Then what do you know?”
“He wasn't working for the Morettis.”
My pulse quickened.
“That's impossible.”
“You destroyed the Morettis because you thought they were responsible.”
“They were.”
“They were involved.”
“But not the people who gave the order.”
I stepped back.
“Who did?”
Victor looked toward the door.
“Someone close to you.”
I remembered Elena's note.
Never trust the doctor who tells you she cannot walk.
Suddenly it didn't sound like Victor alone.
Maybe she meant the doctor had concealed something.
Maybe he had been forced.
“Why help me now?”
“Because Emma found the silver charm.”
I stared.
“How do you know?”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Because I knew your wife had hidden it.”
I wanted to kill him.
But before I could say anything, the door opened.
Emma stood outside.
“Daddy Adrian?”
Victor went pale.
I stared at her.
“Emma?”
She stepped inside.
“Isabella wants you.”
Victor looked terrified.
Emma pointed at him.
“He is the bad doctor.”
Victor whispered,
“She can see it.”
I turned toward him.
“What did you do?”
Victor looked at Emma.
“Nothing.”
Emma shook her head.
“You put sleeping medicine in Isabella's juice.”
My blood turned cold.
Victor immediately said,
“No.”
I grabbed his arm.
“Where?”
“In her bedroom.”
I ran.
Isabella was sitting on her bed.
An untouched glass of juice sat beside her.
Marcus picked it up.
We tested it.
A sedative had been added.
Enough to make a six-year-old dangerously ill.
Victor hadn't done it.
He had been in the medical wing the entire morning.
Someone had entered Isabella's room.
Marcus checked the cameras.
One minute of footage was missing.
Again.
A pattern.
The missing footage from the night Elena died.
The missing footage from Isabella's medical files.
The missing footage from the garden.
Someone was manipulating records.
Someone who knew our systems.
Someone inside the estate.
That afternoon, I questioned every member of the household.
One by one.
Everyone denied involvement.
Then Emma walked past the kitchen door.
She stopped.
She looked at one of the maids.
A woman named Clara.
Emma's face changed.
“Her.”
Clara dropped a tray.
“What?”
Emma hid behind Sophia.
“That lady smells like the room.”
I looked at Clara.
“What room?”
“The dark room.”
Clara began shaking.
Marcus restrained her.
We searched her quarters.
Inside her suitcase was a small burner phone.
Messages showed payments from an unknown account.
But the account had been opened under another name.
Elena's.
I stared at the screen.
Someone had been using my dead wife's identity.
And one message had been sent three hours before her murder.
THE CHILD MUST NOT REMEMBER.
The child.
Isabella.
I immediately went upstairs.
My daughter was staring at a photograph of her mother.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Mommy told me something.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“She said the bad man had blue eyes.”
Victor entered behind me.
“Isabella, are you certain?”
She nodded.
“He cried when Mommy was hurt.”
A man with blue eyes.
I thought through everyone.
Marcus had brown eyes.
Victor's were gray.
Grant, my chief investigator, had blue eyes.
Grant.
The man who had access to the evidence box.
The man who had handled Elena's case.
The man who had controlled security footage after the attack.
I called him.
No answer.
I checked his house.
Empty.
His office.
Empty.
His phone had been disconnected.
Then Marcus found something.
Grant's desk contained a photograph of Emma's grandmother.
Taken twenty-five years earlier.
On the back was written:
SHE KNOWS WHERE THE LEDGER IS.
I turned toward Sophia.
“Where is your mother buried?”
Sophia looked terrified.
“She was cremated.”
“Who paid for it?”
“I don't know.”
“Who was she working for before she came here?”
Sophia hesitated.
“My mother was a nurse.”
“Where?”
“At St. Mary's.”
My heart stopped.
St. Mary's Hospital.
The same hospital where Elena had given birth to Isabella.
The same hospital where Victor worked.
The same hospital where Isabella had been treated after the attack.
And the same hospital where Emma's grandmother had worked.
Everything led back there.
That night, I took Isabella, Emma, Sophia, Marcus, and Victor to St. Mary's.
The hospital basement had been closed for years.
Victor knew the way.
We found an old archive room.
Inside were boxes of patient records.
Emma walked directly to one.
“Here.”
She pointed.
I opened it.
Inside was a newborn photograph.
Isabella.
And beneath it another photograph.
A baby girl with golden curls.
I stared.
“That isn't Isabella.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
“Then who is she?”
He looked at Emma.
She was staring at the photograph.
“My mommy.”
Sophia gasped.
I looked at Emma.
“No.”
Victor whispered,
“It's impossible.”
But it wasn't.
The baby photograph was labeled:
ELENA'S SECOND DAUGHTER.
I stopped breathing.
Emma wasn't merely the maid's daughter.
May you like
She was my wife's child.
And somehow, that meant the little girl standing beside us could be my daughter too.
