Chapter 7 - The Last Summer
The threat changed the rules.
Vincent moved the twins off the estate before sunrise.
Not to another Moretti property.
Not to a hotel.
Not anywhere listed in corporate records.
A pediatric specialist Vincent trusted arranged a private rental near the Connecticut coast under another name.
Only five people knew the location.
Vincent.
Me.
Mrs. Harper.
Two investigators.
Thomas Reed was removed from operational security until authorities cleared him.
He hated it.
Vincent didn’t care.
“I’m not gambling with my children again.”
Neither did I.
The rental house was modest by Moretti standards.
Four bedrooms.
A small kitchen.
A backyard sloping toward the water.
The twins loved it immediately.
“No statues,” Lucas announced.
“No giant stairs,” Leo added.
“No people polishing things while we’re using them,” Lucas said.
Vincent looked offended.
“I like polished things.”
Leo pointed at him.
“That’s your problem.”
For the first time, I heard Vincent laugh with his entire body.
Not long.
But real.
The boys continued improving.
Not magically.
They were still weak.
Still underweight.
Still tired easily.
But within five days, both were waking with clearer eyes.
Lucas asked to walk to the beach.
Leo began drawing again.
Their new physicians adjusted medications and monitored them carefully.
Every improvement felt like evidence.
Every improvement also made Vincent angrier.
“They were being kept sick,” he said one evening.
We stood on the porch while the twins slept.
“We don’t know how much was deliberate.”
“You still think any of this was accidental?”
“No.”
I looked toward the dark ocean.
“But if you decide the answer before the investigation finishes, you’ll stop seeing anything that doesn’t fit.”
He studied me.
“That sounds like something Isabella would have said.”
I smiled sadly.
“I think I would have liked her.”
He looked away.
“She would have liked you.”
The words felt more intimate than they should have.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
Then his phone rang.
An investigator had found something in Isabella’s yellow box.
A photograph.
Not of Blake.
Not Daniel.
Not the maintenance technician.
Carlo Moretti.
Vincent’s father.
The photograph showed Carlo standing beside an unfamiliar woman outside a private clinic.
On the back, Isabella had written:
Evelyn Shaw — ask why Carlo pays her.
Vincent knew the name.
I could see it immediately.
“Who is she?”
He sat down.
“My mother’s sister.”
“Your aunt?”
“She disappeared from the family when I was seventeen.”
“Why?”
“My father said she stole from him.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I did.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
The investigators did.
Evelyn Shaw was alive.
Seventy-one years old.
Living in Rhode Island.
Vincent wanted to drive there immediately.
He was advised not to.
He went anyway.
I went with him.
Evelyn lived in a small gray house near Providence.
No gates.
No guards.
No marble.
She opened the door before we knocked twice.
Her eyes landed on Vincent.
“You finally look tired enough to listen.”
Vincent stared at her.
“You knew I was coming.”
“The police called.”
She looked at me.
“And you are?”
“Claire Morgan.”
“The nanny.”
“How did you know?”
“Your face.”
I frowned.
“What’s wrong with my face?”
“You look like someone trying to keep a Moretti alive.”
She opened the door wider.
“I’ve seen that face before.”
Inside, photographs covered the walls.
Vincent’s mother.
Young Vincent.
Isabella.
I stopped.
“You knew Isabella?”
Evelyn nodded.
“She came here six weeks before she died.”
Vincent sat.
“You never contacted me.”
“She begged me not to.”
His laugh was bitter.
“Of course she did.”
Evelyn poured coffee.
“She was afraid your father was going to take the twins from her.”
“Legally?”
“Your father didn’t rely on courts when family matters were involved.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“What did Isabella discover?”
“That Carlo had Harrison Blake evaluating her.”
“Evaluating her?”
“For instability.”
My stomach turned.
Evelyn opened a cabinet and removed a folder.
Inside were copies of psychiatric notes.
Isabella Moretti.
Anxiety.
Paranoia.
Possible delusional thinking.
Recommendations for continued observation.
Vincent read them.
“These aren’t real.”
“The appointments were.”
“She never saw a psychiatrist.”
“No. Harrison wrote the assessments.”
“Why?”
“To build a record.”
“For what?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“To make it easier to take your sons if Isabella left you.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
“She was planning to leave me?”
“Not because she didn’t love you.”
Evelyn leaned forward.
“She was planning to force you to choose.”
“Between what?”
“Your father’s world and your family.”
Vincent stared at the floor.
Evelyn continued.
“She believed Carlo was using Daniel’s financial operation, Harrison’s medical access, and estate security to control everyone around you.”
“Why poison the ventilation?”
“I don’t know that Carlo did.”
“Isabella suspected him.”
“She suspected everyone.”
“What did she tell you about the smell?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“She believed it started after she rejected medication Harrison prescribed.”
I frowned.
“So someone exposed her through the air instead?”
“That was her theory.”
“Why?”
“To make her sick.”
Vincent’s face twisted.
“To prove she was unstable.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Headaches. nausea. confusion. fatigue. Complaints nobody else could verify.”
My blood went cold.
It wasn’t only about harming Isabella.
It was about discrediting her.
Make her feel terrible.
Then call her anxious when she complained.
The perfect trap.
Vincent whispered, “And the twins?”
Evelyn looked devastated.
“Originally, I don’t think they were targets.”
I sat forward.
“What changed?”
“After Isabella died, Carlo no longer needed the system.”
“So why did a new device appear three years later?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent stood.
“Someone continued it after my father died.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning whoever is doing this now may have learned it from him.”
“Yes.”
On the drive back, Vincent barely spoke.
Halfway to the coast, he pulled off the highway.
He parked beside an empty field.
Then gripped the steering wheel.
“My wife was going to leave me.”
“She was trying to save your sons.”
“She thought she had to save them from me.”
“From your world.”
“That was me.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“That distinction matters.”
I rarely raised my voice.
This time I did.
“You don’t get to turn yourself into the villain because it makes grief simpler.”
He stared.
“Your father threatened her. Blake falsified medical records. Daniel helped hide illegal money. Someone poisoned the house. Those are choices they made.”
“I built the house.”
“You also hired me.”
That stopped him.
“You listened when I smelled something nobody else did.”
He looked down.
“You moved the boys.”
“You ordered independent tests.”
“You called police.”
“You are not responsible for every evil thing another adult hides from you.”
He laughed quietly.
“You always talk to employers like this?”
“Only the exhausting ones.”
He smiled despite himself.
Then his phone rang.
It was the investigator.
They had identified the man who placed the envelope at the estate.
His face had appeared briefly on an exterior camera.
A former Moretti employee.
Name:
Patrick Sloan.
Occupation:
Personal driver.
Former employer:
Carlo Moretti.
Vincent remembered him.
“He drove my father for ten years.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
The investigator answered through the speaker.
“We located his apartment.”
“And?”
“It’s empty.”
“Anything useful?”
A pause.
Then:
“We found photographs.”
“What kind?”
“Your sons.”
Vincent’s grip tightened around the phone.
“How many?”
“Hundreds.”
I felt sick.
The investigator continued.
“And photographs of Claire.”
I looked at Vincent.
“Me?”
“Taken since she arrived at the estate.”
Someone had been watching me too.
My room.
My car.
The grocery store.
The garden.
Then the investigator said one more thing.
“We found a schedule.”
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“What schedule?”
“Tomorrow.”
My stomach tightened.
“For what?”
“Claire’s usual morning walk with the twins.”
Vincent looked at me.
The investigator finished:
“There’s a time written beside it.”
A time less than twelve hours away.
May you like
And underneath it, two words.
Finish Isabella.
