Chapter 4 - MY WIFE’S LAST SECRET
Isabelle had kept a second phone.
I found it because Sophie did.
Again.
Two days after the devices were discovered, Sophie sat beneath the grand piano drawing pictures while Elena helped Mrs. Alvarez downstairs.
The triplets had begun following Sophie everywhere.
Theo crawled after her first.
Miles followed Theo.
Nora followed both while shouting whenever they moved faster than she liked.
I was watching them from the doorway when Sophie disappeared beneath the piano bench.
“What are you doing?”
She looked up.
“Dolly fell.”
The cloth doll slid beneath an old wooden cabinet that had belonged to Isabelle.
Sophie reached behind it.
Then frowned.
“There’s a phone.”
My heartbeat changed.
She pulled out a small white smartphone covered in dust.
I recognized the case.
Isabelle had used it years earlier.
I thought she had thrown it away.
Marco recovered the device.
Its battery was dead.
The passcode took less than a minute to guess.
Our wedding date.
Inside were photographs.
Messages.
Voice recordings.
And one folder labeled:
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME.
I could not open it immediately.
My hand would not move.
Elena stood beside the children.
“You don’t have to do it alone.”
I looked at her.
She seemed surprised she had said it.
So was I.
Nobody spoke to me that way.
People gave orders.
Requests.
Warnings.
Nobody simply reminded me I did not have to suffer alone.
I pressed the folder.
A video opened.
Isabelle appeared.
She was seven months pregnant.
Her stomach enormous with three babies.
Her hair tied messily behind her head.
She looked tired.
Alive.
“Adrien, if you find this and I’m sitting beside you, then congratulations, I was dramatic.”
My throat closed.
She smiled.
“But if I’m not…”
Her smile disappeared.
“I need you to listen.”
I sat.
Isabelle took a breath.
“Camille has been asking strange questions about my will.”
Marco looked at me.
“She asked what happens to the babies if both of us die. She asked whether your brother becomes guardian. She asked whether a maternal relative has any claim.”
Isabelle glanced toward the doorway.
“I told her to stop.”
Then her face tightened.
“Dr. Pierce also changed my medication three times this month.”
I stopped breathing.
“He says my blood is clotting too easily, but Dr. Russo disagrees. Pierce insists Russo is old-fashioned.”
She looked frightened.
“I found Camille in our bathroom yesterday. She said she was looking for lipstick.”
A pause.
“My medication was on the counter.”
I closed my eyes.
Isabelle continued.
“I know how this sounds. I know Camille is my sister.”
Her voice broke.
“But something is wrong.”
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
Why had she not told me?
Then she answered as if hearing the question.
“I didn’t tell you yet because you already think every problem can be solved with security men and guns.”
Even Marco looked away.
She knew me.
“I need proof before you burn New York looking for shadows.”
A sad smile.
“But if I die unexpectedly, do not let Camille near the children without supervision.”
The video ended.
I could not move.
For eighteen months, I had blamed fate.
Medicine.
God.
Myself.
Now my dead wife was telling me she had been afraid.
And I had not known.
I stood suddenly.
A glass on the desk shattered when I swept it aside.
The children startled.
I froze.
Theo began crying.
Immediately, shame replaced rage.
I crouched.
“I’m sorry.”
Theo stared at me.
I opened my arms.
He came to me.
So did Miles.
Nora pushed between them because Nora believed personal space was an insult.
I held all three.
Sophie watched.
“Are you sad?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Because of the lady in the phone?”
“Yes.”
“She was pretty.”
My throat tightened.
“She was.”
“Was she the babies’ mommy?”
“Yes.”
Sophie considered this.
“Then she can still love them.”
The entire room became still.
Elena’s eyes filled.
I could barely speak.
“What do you mean?”
Sophie shrugged.
“My daddy is gone, but Mommy says he still loves me.”
I looked at Elena.
She lowered her eyes.
I had never asked where Sophie’s father was.
“He died?” I asked quietly.
Elena nodded.
“Construction accident. Two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
She gave a tired smile.
“But Sophie is right.”
I looked at the triplets.
Maybe love did remain.
In letters.
Videos.
Faces.
Memories.
Maybe Isabelle had protected them even after death by leaving evidence behind.
Marco spent the next several hours examining the phone.
He found deleted messages recovered from cloud storage.
Camille to Isabelle:
YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE LETTING ADRIEN’S FAMILY CONTROL EVERYTHING.
Isabelle:
THEY ARE MY CHILDREN, CAMILLE.
Camille:
UNTIL SOMETHING HAPPENS TO YOU.
Isabelle:
WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?
No reply.
Another thread involved Dr. Pierce.
Pierce:
TAKE TWO TABLETS TONIGHT.
Isabelle:
DR. RUSSO SAID ONE.
Pierce:
IGNORE RUSSO. HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND YOUR UPDATED RESULTS.
The updated results were fraudulent.
Investigators proved that before midnight.
Someone had altered Isabelle’s laboratory values in the hospital system.
The login belonged to a nurse named Rachel Kent.
She disappeared three weeks after Isabelle died.
Until now, nobody had considered it suspicious.
Marco tracked her to Pennsylvania.
Alive.
Working under her married name.
Federal investigators brought her in voluntarily.
She confessed within forty minutes.
Camille had paid her $30,000 to change laboratory values.
Rachel claimed she believed the purpose was insurance fraud.
She denied knowing Isabelle would be harmed.
Then she gave us the name that changed everything.
Sebastian Laurent.
Camille and Isabelle’s father.
My children’s grandfather.
A man I had despised for years.
Sebastian was old money.
Old arrogance.
And drowning in debt.
Isabelle had cut him off after discovering he used her inheritance as collateral for failed real-estate investments.
He blamed me.
Said I poisoned his daughter against her family.
When Isabelle died, her trust transferred to the children.
Almost ninety million dollars.
If the triplets died before adulthood, depending on guardianship and certain trust conditions, portions could return to Isabelle’s blood relatives.
I stared at Marco.
“Camille wasn’t trying to become their mother.”
“No.”
“She was trying to control the trust.”
“Yes.”
“And Sebastian?”
“Potentially the same motive.”
My blood ran cold.
“Where is he?”
Marco’s silence told me everything.
Missing.
His Manhattan townhouse was empty.
His private plane had not moved.
His bank accounts were untouched.
Then another security officer entered.
“We found something in Ms. Laurent’s abandoned car.”
He placed a photograph on the desk.
Elena.
Leaving a grocery store with Sophie.
Taken three months before Camille began staying regularly at my estate.
On the back were two words.
POSSIBLE LEVERAGE.
Elena’s face drained.
“What does that mean?”
I knew.
People like Sebastian did not see individuals.
They saw pressure points.
Sophie had exposed the devices.
But even before that, someone had been watching Elena.
Why?
Marco opened Rachel Kent’s full statement.
Then stopped.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Rachel says Camille asked her about another woman.”
“Who?”
“A hospital housekeeper who saw Camille near Isabelle’s medication cart.”
Elena’s expression changed.
“I worked at Saint Matthew’s Hospital.”
I turned toward her.
“When?”
“Four years. Before Sophie was born. Then again part-time after my husband died.”
“Were you working the night Isabelle delivered?”
Elena went white.
“I…”
Her hand moved to her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“I saw Camille.”
The room became silent.
“She was outside the medication room.”
“Did she see you?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Now everything made sense.
The photographs.
The hostility.
The doll.
Camille had not targeted Sophie because Sophie knew too much.
She targeted Sophie because Elena did.
Even if Elena had not understood what she had witnessed.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
Her voice shook.
“I saw a woman standing in a hallway. That’s all.”
“It matters now.”
Marco’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen.
A video had been sent from Camille’s burner account.
Sebastian Laurent sat in a dark room.
Older.
Silver-haired.
Perfect suit.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Adrien.”
My fists tightened.
“If you want Elena Ramirez and her daughter to remain alive, stop investigating Isabelle’s death.”
Elena gasped.
Sebastian smiled.
“You took one daughter from me.”
His expression hardened.
“I will not let you take the other.”
The video ended.
Elena stared at me.
“He knows where we are.”
I looked at Sophie playing beside my children.
Then at the three toddlers who already loved her.
“No.”
I reached for my phone.
“He knows where you were.”
I called Marco’s deputy.
“Move Elena and Sophie to the secure residential wing. Double guards.”
Elena stepped toward me.
“I don’t want Sophie dragged deeper into this.”
“She’s already in it.”
“I can leave.”
“No.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don’t get to order my life.”
She was right.
Again.
I lowered my voice.
“You can leave if you choose.”
I looked at Sophie.
“But Sebastian Laurent has already watched you for months. Outside these gates, you become easier to reach.”
Elena understood.
She hated it.
But understood.
“What happens now?”
I looked at Isabelle’s frozen face on the paused video.
May you like
“We finish what my wife started.”
And this time, nobody who helped kill her would disappear before telling me the truth.
