Chapter 4 - THE SECOND CAR
The original accident investigation had been closed as a single-vehicle collision.
That changed when Hannah's statement resurfaced.
With her permission, I gave the document to an independent attorney and requested that the police review the case.
The attorney warned me not to conduct my own investigation through intimidation.
For once, I listened.
Three days later, a traffic camera recording was recovered from an old insurance archive.
The footage showed Isabella's Mercedes approaching the river road.
Behind it was a dark SUV.
The SUV accelerated.
It moved dangerously close to the Mercedes.
Then the recording ended.
I watched it six times.
My wife had not simply lost control on an icy road.
Someone had been following her.
The SUV's registration was obscured.
But the vehicle matched one used by a private security contractor.
A contractor whose invoices had been approved by Dominic Rinaldi.
I confronted him in my office.
He stood beside the window.
"You're making a mistake, Luca."
"Did you arrange for someone to follow Isabella?"
"No."
"Did you suppress Hannah's statement?"
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"She was unreliable."
"Did you file the complaint that destroyed her career?"
Silence.
I stepped closer.
"Answer me."
He looked at me.
"Your wife was getting involved in things she didn't understand."
The words struck like a blow.
"What things?"
Dominic looked away.
"Business."
I felt cold.
"Whose business?"
He did not answer.
I looked at the man who had stood beside me for twenty years.
The man who had carried Sophia when she was a baby.
The man who had organized Isabella's funeral.
Then I said quietly:
"You're finished."
Dominic laughed.
"You think you can remove me that easily?"
I stared at him.
"Yes."
He leaned forward.
"Then you'd better ask yourself why your wife was driving toward the river that night."
My heart pounded.
"Why?"
Dominic smiled.
"She wasn't going home."
After he left, I opened Isabella's old calendar.
Most of her appointments had been ordinary.
School meetings.
Charity events.
Doctor visits.
But on November seventeenth, three years earlier, she had written one word beside an address.
HARBOR.
Beneath it were two initials.
H.B.
Hannah Brooks.
I stared at the page.
May you like
My wife had been planning to meet the woman who later saved our daughter.
And Hannah had never mentioned it.
