Chapter 6 - The Woman in the Hospital Records
The discovery changed everything.
Damian ordered a new investigation into Isabella's death. He requested the original police report, hospital records, and vehicle inspection documents.
The official story was straightforward: Isabella had died after a single-car collision on a rainy highway.
But the records contained inconsistencies.
The hospital had recorded her arrival under a different surname. The attending physician had resigned two weeks later. The vehicle had been destroyed before an independent inspection could take place.
Most troubling of all, the death certificate had been processed by an attorney who later became Anthony's personal adviser.
Damian sat in his office staring at the documents.
"I buried my wife," he said.
Emma stood opposite him.
"You buried someone the authorities identified as your wife."
His jaw tightened.
"You think she might be alive?"
"I think someone worked very hard to make sure you never asked that question."
For the first time, Damian looked genuinely afraid.
Not for himself.
For the possibility that he had spent four years grieving a story someone else had written.
Marco located the retired physician, Dr. Samuel Price, living in a small town outside Milwaukee.
The doctor initially refused to speak.
Then Emma showed him Catherine's photograph.
He went pale.
"Where did you get that?"
"From my mother's belongings."
Price closed his office door.
"Your mother was trying to protect someone."
"Isabella?"
The doctor nodded.
"Mrs. Vescari survived the crash. She was badly injured, but she was alive when we transferred her to another facility."
Damian stood abruptly.
"Where?"
"I was told she needed protection. A woman from a private security firm arranged everything."
"Who authorized the transfer?"
Price looked down.
"Anthony Vescari."
Damian's hands curled into fists.
"Why would my uncle hide my wife from me?"
"Because she had evidence against him. He said she was suffering from memory loss and couldn't safely return to her family."
"Did you believe him?"
"I was afraid."
The doctor's answer hung heavily in the room.
He provided the name of the facility where Isabella had been transferred.
It had closed two years earlier.
But its former administrator remembered a patient who had used a different name.
The woman had eventually left with a charitable organization that operated shelters for women escaping dangerous situations.
One of its coordinators remembered her too.
"She was quiet," the coordinator said. "She had a little girl with her. She told us her husband had died."
Damian went still.
"A little girl?"
The coordinator searched an old archive.
Then she found a photograph.
A young woman with dark hair stood beside a child in a yellow coat.
The woman was Isabella.
The child was a little girl named Sophie.
Emma stared at the screen.
"Who is Sophie?"
The coordinator checked the file.
"No surname listed. But there's a note that she was approximately two years old when they arrived."
Damian looked at Emma.
They both understood what this meant.
Isabella might have survived the crash, escaped Anthony, and built a new life.
But if she had taken a child with her, that child might be connected to the missing money.
Or to the truth about what had happened before the crash.
Damian called the coordinator.
"Please. If you know where she went, tell me."
The woman hesitated.
Then she gave him an address.
A small house outside Madison, Wisconsin.
Damian stared at the location on his phone.
May you like
He had spent four years believing his wife was dead.
Now he was one drive away from discovering whether she had ever stopped loving him.
