Chapter 5: The Second Phone
The warrant arrived in under two hours.
Daniel had called the right judge.
My security chief had already prepared a full chain-of-custody document for the phone and the coat.
By the time the digital forensics officer arrived at the house, Isabella was sitting at the far end of the kitchen table with Gerald Foss beside her, and neither of them had spoken in forty minutes.
Maya was upstairs.
I had asked Mrs.
Calloway, our housekeeper, to bring her something to eat and sit with her.
Mrs.
Calloway had arrived at the house twenty minutes after I called her, and when she saw the marks on Maya's shoulders during the pediatric examination, she had pressed her lips together and said nothing.
But she had not left Maya's side since.
The forensics officer worked quietly.
The room waited.
The first thing he found was a contact list.
Not names.
Numbers only.
Eleven of them.
The second thing was a series of voice messages, saved rather than deleted, going back eight months.
He played the most recent one through a small speaker.
A man's voice.
Unhurried.
Familiar with Isabella in the way that takes time.
*The deed transfer needs to happen before the acquisition closes.
Once he's locked into the deal, he won't want the distraction of a contested divorce.
Push him on the documents this week.
If he signs, we move.
If he doesn't — we go to the backup.*
"Stop it there," Daniel said.
The room was quiet.
"Who is that?" I asked.
Gerald Foss studied the ceiling.
"Isabella," I said.
"Who is that?"
She looked at the table.
"I want immunity before I answer any questions."
"You're not being questioned by police," Daniel said.
"You're sitting in a kitchen.
But that will change."
"Then I'll wait until it does."
The forensics officer scrolled further.
He stopped at a photograph — taken on the second phone, sent to the same number that had left the voice message.
It was a photograph of my desk.
Taken from above, slightly angled.
On the desk was a document I recognized immediately.
Not the Delaware filing.
Something older.
Something from four years ago, before Isabella, before the acquisition, before any of this.
A private agreement between me and my former business partner, Marcus Webb, settling a dispute that had never been made public.
The settlement had been legal.
Fully documented.
Signed by both parties with independent counsel present.
But it contained a clause — standard in agreements of that kind — that restricted either party from discussing the terms publicly for ten years.
If that document appeared in the press, or in a regulatory filing, or in a divorce proceeding, it would trigger the clause.
Marcus could sue.
The resulting legal noise would delay the acquisition by months.
Possibly kill it entirely.
Isabella had not found a crime.
She had found a pressure point.
And she had photographed it and sent it to someone who knew exactly what to do with it.
"The voice on that message," my security chief said, pulling up something on his own tablet.
"I've heard it before." He turned the screen toward me.
A photograph.
A charity gala, two years ago.
Isabella in a green dress, laughing.
And beside her, one hand at the small of her back, a man I recognized from the financial pages.
His name was Dorian Cassel.
He ran a private acquisitions firm.
He had tried to buy into my company eighteen months ago and I had turned him down.
I had turned him down, and six weeks later, Isabella had told me she wanted to try for a baby.
I sat down.
Daniel put a hand briefly on my shoulder.
"Nathan."
"How long," I said.
Not to Daniel.
To the room.
To the answer I already knew.
Gerald Foss stood up.
"I need to speak with my client privately.
Now."
"Sit down, Gerald," Isabella said.
He stared at her.
"Isabella—"
"I said sit down." She looked at me across the table.
Her voice was the flattest I had ever heard it.
"You want to know how long.
Fine.
Dorian approached me before I ever met you.
He knew your company was the missing piece for a deal he'd been building for five years.
He needed someone on the inside.
Someone you'd trust completely." She paused.
"I was very good at my job, Nathan.
You have to admit that."
The forensics officer had stopped typing.
Everyone in the room had stopped moving.
"Maya," I said quietly.
"Was she ever part of this?"
Something crossed Isabella's face.
The first thing that looked unplanned.
"No," she said.
"Maya was a complication I didn't expect."
"A complication."
"She was supposed to be at her grandmother's.
Every weekend.
That was the arrangement when we married.
She wasn't supposed to be in the house that much." Isabella's voice stayed flat.
"But then your mother's health changed, and Maya was home, and I had a timeline to meet, and I—" She stopped.
"And you needed her out of the way," I said.
She didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
Daniel's hand was moving across his notepad.
The officer nearest the door had already stepped into the hallway to make a call.
And upstairs, I could hear Mrs.
Calloway reading aloud to Maya in a low, steady voice.
May you like
Whatever story she was reading, it had nothing to do with any of this.
I was grateful for that more than I could say.
