Chapter 6 - Isabella’s Impossible Alibi
Gabriel’s security team traced the photograph of Isabella to an abandoned medical office on Chicago’s south side.
They arrived too late.
The chair was there.
The rope was there.
A torn piece of Isabella’s blouse lay on the floor.
But no Isabella.
No Whitmore.
On the wall someone had written:
ASK REBECCA WHY SHE WAS THERE WHEN CARLO DIED.
Hannah read it twice.
Rebecca had never mentioned Carlo.
Not directly.
When they searched employment databases, another contradiction emerged.
Eight years earlier, Rebecca Sloan had not been a nurse.
She had been a twenty-two-year-old medical assistant.
At Whitmore’s private practice.
Vincent stared at the record.
“She worked for him.”
Gabriel nodded.
“For eleven months.”
Including the month Carlo died.
A traffic camera finally gave them Isabella’s location.
She had checked into a hotel near O’Hare under another name.
Police reached her before the Moretti security team.
She was alive.
The apparent kidnapping had been partially staged.
Whitmore had photographed her after a confrontation.
The bruise was real.
The restraints were real.
But Isabella admitted she had voluntarily met him.
“I thought I could make him confess,” she told Vincent from an interview room.
“You thought meeting the man who poisoned me alone was intelligent?”
“I thought I was the reason this happened!”
For the first time, Isabella’s polished composure broke.
She confessed to paying Whitmore.
To hiding documents.
To bringing treatments to Eleanor.
But she insisted she had believed those bags contained legitimate medication.
“Why did you remove them from the refrigerator?”
“Because Samuel called me after the ambulance left. He said the labels would make me look responsible.”
“So you destroyed evidence.”
“I panicked.”
“And the photograph?”
“He grabbed me when I told him I was going to police. He wanted to frighten you.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent stared at his sister.
“Did you kill Dad?”
Isabella began crying.
“No.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
That was the critical question.
Because Carlo’s death certificate placed his time of death shortly after 11:00 p.m.
Isabella claimed she had been attending a charity dinner across town.
The old event records supported her.
Dozens of photographs showed her there.
From 8:00 until almost midnight.
Her alibi was nearly impossible to fake.
Whitmore had been photographed there too.
He had attended as a Moretti family guest.
Which meant neither Isabella nor Whitmore appeared to have been with Carlo when he died.
Then who was?
Gabriel examined the original emergency logs.
Someone called 911 from Carlo’s study.
The call came at 11:16.
The caller was Eleanor.
But Eleanor had told them she found Carlo after Whitmore arrived.
That was impossible.
Hannah confronted her.
Eleanor finally whispered:
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because Carlo wasn’t alone.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Who was with him?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“I didn’t know her name then.”
“Do you know it now?”
Eleanor looked at Hannah.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Hannah felt the floor shift beneath her.
Rebecca had been twenty-two.
Working for Whitmore.
Present in Carlo’s study on the night of his death.
And now, eight years later, she had mysteriously become the nurse caring for Eleanor.
Nothing about that could be coincidence.
Gabriel ordered every security unit to locate her.
Then Hannah’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Rebecca.
Hannah answered.
“You lied to me.”
“I had to.”
“You were with Carlo when he died.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
“I can’t over the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because Whitmore isn’t the person you should be afraid of.”
Hannah looked at Vincent.
“Then who is?”
Rebecca whispered:
“The person who hired Whitmore.”
The line went dead.
Seconds later a text arrived.
An address.
And one sentence.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOUR FATHER HAD HIS STROKE.
Hannah stared at the screen.
Until that moment, she had believed Walter’s stroke was tragedy.
Bad luck.
A medical event.
Rebecca was suggesting otherwise.
May you like
And suddenly the Moretti conspiracy wasn’t just connected to Hannah’s father’s career.
It might be connected to the reason he had lost the life he once had.
