Chapter 6 - ISABELLA’S PRICE
Isabella chose a twenty-four-hour diner two towns outside Oakhill.
Wendy arrived with Amelia and sat in a booth visible from the front counter. She had no intention of meeting Isabella alone, and Detective Ortiz had warned her not to promise legal protection she could not provide.
Isabella appeared twenty minutes late wearing sunglasses despite the rain.
She slid into the booth but did not remove her coat.
“You brought a lawyer.”
“You helped steal from me.”
“I didn’t know about the company money.”
“You wore my grandmother’s earrings at a wedding in my house.”
“Gregory gave them to me.”
“You borrowed them six months ago and never returned them.”
Isabella removed her glasses. Her eyes were swollen but dry.
“I know what I did.”
Wendy had imagined this conversation countless times since the garden. In every version, Isabella apologized, and Wendy delivered a perfect sentence that reduced her to shame.
The real moment was smaller.
There was coffee on the table. Rain streaked the glass. Isabella looked frightened, but fear did not erase what she had chosen.
“What did you take?” Amelia asked.
Isabella reached into her coat and placed a flash drive on the table.
“I copied messages from Gregory’s laptop.”
“How did you access it?”
“He gave me the password.”
“Did you take the laptop?”
“No.”
“Did you alter any files?”
“No.”
Amelia did not touch the drive.
“We will need to preserve it properly. You should also speak to your own attorney before making statements.”
“I can’t afford an attorney.”
“That does not make Wendy responsible for becoming yours.”
Isabella flinched.
Then she looked at Wendy.
“Gregory told me you were ending the engagement after your trip. He said you had agreed to transfer the house because he helped build your company. He said the ceremony was supposed to happen after you signed.”
“But I didn’t sign.”
“He said you had.”
Isabella described months of promises. Gregory claimed Wendy had become controlling and emotionally cruel. He said she used money to prevent him from leaving. He told Isabella that the transfer would compensate him for years of work.
Some of it was manipulation.
Some of it was built from truths Wendy did not like.
She had dismissed Gregory’s contributions. She had used ownership of the company to end arguments. She had sometimes treated financial dependence as proof that she was right.
But she had not authorized a wedding, a fraudulent transfer, or secret charges.
“You still chose to stand under that arch,” Wendy said.
“Yes.”
“In my home.”
“Yes.”
“Wearing my family’s jewelry.”
Isabella lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than excuses.
“What do you want?” Wendy asked.
“I want you to tell the police I didn’t know.”
“I don’t know what you knew.”
“I can give you everything.”
“You can give investigators what you have and tell the truth. I will not buy evidence from you with a promise.”
Isabella glanced toward the parking lot.
“There was supposed to be a closing Monday morning. Not at a bank. At a private office near the county line. Richard had three investors coming to the garden because they wanted to see Gregory in possession of the property.”
“Who were they?”
“I only know one name. Warren Pike.”
Amelia wrote it down.
Warren Pike managed a private lending fund that had previously financed distressed commercial properties.
“What was Schedule B?” Wendy asked.
Isabella’s hands closed around her coffee cup.
“Gregory said it was the only page that could ruin everything.”
“Did you see it?”
“Once. It named another person connected to the trust.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t read the full name. Gregory covered it when I entered the room. But the relationship line said granddaughter.”
Wendy stared at her.
“I am Lucía’s only granddaughter.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Isabella looked at the envelope Wendy had brought containing photographs of the pearl inscription.
“When Gregory gave me the earrings, one back plate was loose. I saw the initials.”
“E.M. to L.R.”
“I asked Celeste who E.M. was.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me the earrings belonged to my mother.”
Wendy stopped breathing for a moment.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Marina Marín.”
The surname matched the jeweler’s memory.
Isabella continued.
“My mother died when I was twelve. She never mentioned your grandmother. But Celeste said Lucía took something from Marina’s family, and the house was never meant to belong only to you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because by then I was already with Gregory.”
Wendy looked at the woman who had once slept beside her on the living-room floor after Lucía’s funeral. Isabella had held Wendy’s hand while she cried.
All those years, neither of them had known their families might be connected.
Or Isabella had known longer than she admitted.
A dark sedan entered the diner parking lot and stopped without turning off its headlights.
Isabella saw it and went pale.
“That’s Richard’s driver.”
Amelia reached for her phone.
The sedan remained still for ten seconds, then reversed and disappeared into traffic.
May you like
When Wendy looked back, Isabella had pushed the flash drive toward her.
“There’s a folder called Monday,” she said. “Inside it is a photograph of Schedule B.”
