Chapter 4 - THE VOICE ON THE RECORDING
The recording was examined in a secure forensic lab before anyone attempted to play it. The specialist found that the device had been sealed against moisture and stored in a way that had preserved most of its contents. The audio was old, but it was recoverable.
Evelyn Shaw, the attorney Adrian had called the night I first met him, joined us for the listening session. A police investigator was present too. Adrian sat at the end of the table with his hands folded, and I sat opposite him with my mother's note in front of me.
The specialist pressed play.
At first, there was only static and the faint scrape of a chair. Then Isabella's voice came through—young, clear, and impatient.
“Testing. Sofia says if I don't label this, I'll forget why I made it. So: it's Tuesday, and Victor is lying.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
A second voice, my mother's, answered from farther away. “You can't record people saying things like that and expect it to be safe.”
“Then I'll record what they do. That's harder to explain away.”
A rustle. A door closing.
Isabella continued. “The payments to Bellweather Consulting are not for the foundation. They go through the kitchen account, then into the private trust. Victor signs the authorizations, but Father's name is on the final page. I don't know whether Father understands what he's signing.”
My mother's voice grew quieter. “If he does, he won't admit it.”
“I need Adrian to see it.”
“He won't believe you if you accuse Victor.”
“Then I'll show him the ledger.”
There was a pause. Then Isabella said something that made Adrian grip the edge of the table.
“I'm going to ask Victor about the bottle tonight. If he gets angry, I'll know.”
My mother's voice sharpened. “Don't. Please. Give the copies to me. We can go to someone outside the family.”
“And leave Adrian here to inherit a lie? No.”
A door opened in the background. Footsteps approached. The recording shifted, as though someone had moved the device beneath a table.
Victor's voice came through, calm and familiar.
“Isabella, your father wants you in the west office.”
“I have something to ask you first.”
“Then ask.”
“Why are you paying the kitchen supplier twice for the same delivery?”
A silence followed.
Victor answered in a tone that might have sounded reasonable to anyone who did not know what the question meant. “Because the supplier has two accounts. Your father approved it.”
“I checked. One account is registered to a company that doesn't exist.”
“Then you should check your work more carefully.”
“I did. I found your signature.”
A chair scraped. My mother's voice was barely audible: “Isabella, don't.”
Victor's voice lowered. “You have no idea what you are interfering with.”
“I know you're stealing from the trust.”
“You're a child.”
“I'm nineteen.”
“You're a child who believes a few numbers make her powerful.”
The recording crackled. Then came a sharp sound, followed by silence long enough that I stopped breathing.
When Victor spoke again, the warmth had gone from his voice.
“If you tell Adrian, he will choose his father. If you tell the police, your father will call it a family matter. You will lose everything, and the people who helped you will lose more.”
Isabella answered softly. “Then I suppose I have nothing left to lose.”
The audio ended with the sound of a door closing.
No one spoke for several seconds.
The recording did not capture the poisoning itself. It did not prove that Victor killed Isabella. But it established that she had confronted him about suspicious payments, that my mother knew about the financial records, and that Victor had threatened her shortly before Isabella died. It also suggested that the family had used its influence to discourage outside scrutiny.
Evelyn asked the specialist to create a verified copy and preserve the original. The investigator said the recording would be sent to the relevant forensic team and compared with known samples of the voices. Every step would be documented before it could be used in court.
Adrian stood and walked to the window. He remained there until Evelyn asked whether he needed a break.
“No,” he said. “Play the end again.”
The specialist did. This time, Adrian listened with his eyes open. When the recording finished, he turned toward us.
“I was in the west office that night,” he said. “Victor told me Isabella had taken money. He said she was trying to blackmail Father. I shouted at her. I told her she was selfish and reckless.”
His voice broke on the last word.
“The next morning, she was dead.”
I did not know what to say. I could see the memory replaying behind his eyes, the old argument turning into something irreversible.
“You were twenty-one,” Evelyn said carefully. “You were given information by people you trusted. That does not make you responsible for what happened to her.”
“But I helped make her alone.”
He did not ask us to absolve him.
The investigator requested a list of everyone who had been present at the residence on the night Isabella died. Adrian provided the names he remembered, including the family physician, the head of household staff, the security chief, and a former housekeeper named Mrs. Beatrice Bell. The official report said Mrs. Bell had resigned shortly afterward and moved to a care facility outside the city.
“Is she still alive?” I asked.
Evelyn checked the address through the investigator. Mrs. Bell was eighty-six and living in a residential care home in Pasadena. She had given no public interviews and had never spoken to the press about the Moretti family.
Adrian looked at me. “She loved Isabella. If anyone knows what happened after that recording stopped, it may be her.”
“Then we ask her,” I said.
He nodded. “We ask. We don't pressure her.”
The next morning, we visited the care home with the investigator. Mrs. Bell was small and neatly dressed, with white hair pinned at the nape of her neck. She recognized Adrian immediately, but her expression did not brighten.
“You look like your father,” she said.
“I've spent years trying not to.”
“Then you should have started by listening.”
Adrian accepted the rebuke without defending himself.
Mrs. Bell looked at me. “You are Sofia's girl.”
“Yes.”
“I wondered whether she had managed to keep you away.”
“From what?”
Mrs. Bell folded her hands. “From the kind of family that mistakes silence for loyalty.”
She agreed to speak with the investigator, but only after she had been told that the conversation would be recorded and that she could stop at any time. She confirmed that Isabella had been frightened in the days before her death. She had asked Mrs. Bell to keep a small package safe, but the package was gone by the morning after Isabella died.
“Did you see who took it?” the investigator asked.
Mrs. Bell hesitated. “I saw Victor come out of the east hall. He was carrying a leather folder. He told me it was business paperwork and ordered me to forget I had seen him.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“No. The family doctor said Isabella had died from an accidental reaction. Mr. Moretti told us the matter was closed. And Victor said if anyone reopened it, Sofia would be arrested.”
My mother's name sounded fragile in the quiet room.
“Why didn't you help her?” I asked, then immediately regretted the sharpness in my voice.
Mrs. Bell did not take offense. “I was a frightened old woman even then. I had worked for the family for forty years. I told myself I could protect the staff by staying quiet. I was wrong.”
She reached for a tissue.
“Your mother came to me two days later. She said Isabella had hidden copies of the ledger. She wanted to find them before Victor did. I gave her the brass key and told her about the music room. Then I helped her leave the house.”
“Did she poison Isabella?” Adrian asked.
Mrs. Bell looked directly at him.
“No. Sofia was the only person who tried to save that girl.”
Adrian lowered his head.
Mrs. Bell continued. “The family physician told me later that the substance in Isabella's system did not match the bottle found in Sofia's locker. He said he was ordered to amend his report. He refused to sign the final statement, but he never went to the police. He was paid to leave the city.”
The investigator asked for the physician's name. Mrs. Bell provided it, along with a location where he had once sent her a letter. It was another lead, not a verdict. But it was the first direct account from someone who had been inside the house after Isabella's death.
When we left, Adrian walked slowly, as if the floor had become unfamiliar.
“My father knew,” he said.
“We don't know exactly what he knew,” Evelyn replied. “But we have reason to investigate.”
“He let me believe Sofia murdered Isabella.”
“He may have been protecting Victor. He may have been protecting the family. We need proof.”
Adrian looked at me. “Your mother tried to tell the truth. I helped silence her without ever speaking to her.”
I held the photograph of Isabella and Sofia in my pocket.
May you like
“Then don't waste the chance you have now.”
He nodded, and for once, he did not ask me to trust him. He simply walked beside me toward the car, carrying a truth that had finally become too heavy to hide.
