“Believe me when I tell you that I am praying that she did exactly that.”
Fallon stilled. “She?”
“The Sentinel is a woman. She pretends to be male online because it adds another layer of cover.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the Sentinel raised me after my parents were killed in a plane crash,” Isabella said. “I’m her granddaughter.”
Fallon felt as if he’d been poleaxed. He sat forward abruptly, automatically heightening his talent. “You’re serious.”
“The reason you never found the real me when you went looking is because I have been living under fake IDs all of my life.” Isabella cradled her tea mug in both hands. “My mother did not go to a hospital to have me.”
“So, no Social Security number? No birth certificate?”
“I’ve had a dozen Social Security numbers during my life, as well as a variety of birth certificates, credit cards and passports. My grandmother manufactured a fake ID for me before I was even born and she gives me a new one whenever I move or change jobs.” Isabella glanced at the wall where her backpack hung on an iron hook. “I’ve got two brand-new, unused sets in my pack right now.”
“Where were you born?’ he demanded, fascinated. “How did you manage to stay out of the system?”
“My parents were living with my grandmother on a remote island in the South Pacific when I was born. My father wrote thrillers under an assumed name, all based on conspiracies he had uncovered. My mother was an artist. Her work hangs in some very respected museums. All the paintings are under a fake name. I was born at home, and the birth was never registered with any official government agency. I was homeschooled from the start. Every name I’ve ever used except Isabella Valdez has been manufactured.”
He whistled softly. “I’ll be damned. And people think I have a problem when it comes to the paranoia thing. Isabella Valdez is your real name?”
“Yes.” She straightened her shoulders. “I decided to start using it the night I hitchhiked to Scargill Cove.”
“What about the bio I found online?”
“Oh, that’s a complete fake, of course. First time it’s ever been used. Grandma told me to save it for this particular situation.”
“Where did your grandmother get the sets of fake ID?” Fallon asked.
“From an old family firm that specializes in that kind of high-end art. They’ve been in business for generations. Grandma always said that if they were good enough for J&J, they were good enough for her.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that she uses the Harper family’s services.”
Isabella smiled into her cup. “Good guess.”
Understanding whispered through him. “Why did you come to Scargill Cove, Isabella?”
“To find you, of course,” she said very steadily. “Grandma always told me that if anything ever happened to her or if I got into the kind of trouble that I couldn’t handle on my own, I should contact Jones & Jones.”
“Why did it take you this long to tell me the truth?”
“Because I had to be sure I could trust you. We are all influenced by our upbringing. I was raised in a family of conspiracy theorists. I have certain hardwired eccentricities.”
“In other words, you don’t trust anyone outside the family.”
“I trust you, Fallon, now that I’ve had a chance to know you. But I had to be sure. My grandmother’s life, assuming she is still alive, depends on it.”
“And if she is dead?”
Isabella’s eyes darkened. “Then I will avenge her.”
He steepled his fingers, thinking. “What makes you think someone would try to kill her?”
“Because they don’t want her to expose the conspiracy on her website, of course. But I’m praying that she outwitted them. Grandma is really, really good when it comes to this kind of stuff. With luck, the bastards believe that she’s dead.”
“Why would they believe she’s dead?” he asked.
“There’s plenty of documentation confirming her death.” Isabella waved that off. “There was a notice in the local paper. A death certificate was filed. According to the records, Grandma was cremated. It’s all very neat and tidy.”
“But you’re not buying any of it?”
“It’s possible that they found her,” Isabella conceded. “But I think there is also a very good chance that she is alive and has gone into hiding. I have no way to contact her. That was part of the plan, you see. She told me that if she ever had to disappear, we had to make it look solid.”
“But she told you to come to J&J for help?”
“Yes.” Isabella watched him with a steely determination. “They’re after me, too. I got away once, but I might not be so lucky a second time.”
Fallon went stone cold. “Someone tried to kill you?”
“In Phoenix about a month ago. They found me at the department store where I was working. That’s when it hit me.” Isabella broke off. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“When what hit you?” he prompted.
“That they might have found her, after all.” Isabella opened her desk drawer, yanked a tissue out of the small box she kept there and wiped her eyes. “I had been telling myself that she was following the emergency plan. Gone into hiding. But if they found me, maybe they found her, too. Maybe she really is dead.”
Isabella was crying. He had no clue what to do in a situation like this.
“Isabella,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said. She sniffed into the tissue. “It’s just that if she really is gone, it’s as if she never even lived. She set things up that way. Her only legacy is her website, and it just sits there online like some kind of virtual tombstone. I can hardly bring myself to look at it.”
“Isabella,” he said again. And stopped because he could not think of anything else to say.
“If she’s dead, it’s my fault because I told her about the conspiracy,” Isabella said into the tissue.
He was on his feet without conscious thought. He rounded his desk, yanking the clean, neatly folded white handkerchief out of his pocket. She took the handkerchief from him, looked at it for a few seconds as if she had never seen one and then she started to cry quietly into it.
He hauled her gently to her feet, wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, as if he could somehow shield her from the dark fantasy world she had constructed.
With a small cry, she dropped the damp handkerchief onto the desk, buried her face against the front of his black pullover and sobbed in earnest.
He stood there with her while the fog off the ocean rolled in, cloaking the town and the office windows, isolating them from the rest of the world.
15
After a while, Isabella stopped crying. She raised her head and gave him a shaky smile.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Lately that’s been happening to me without warning. I’m fine one minute and then I think about how she might actually be dead and that maybe I’m just fooling myself and all of a sudden I’m crying.”
“It’s all right,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He realized that she was trying to step back. Reluctantly he opened his arms and released her.
