Chương 10
“We had a prenup.”
“Yes. Your prenup.”
“You had lawyers.”
“I had the lawyer you recommended.”
“That was your decision.”
“Yes.”
She turned.
“So was staying. So was every other stupid compromise I made because it was easier than fighting you.”
Dante’s anger sharpened again.
“None of that put pills in my mouth.”
“No.”
“Then stop using our marriage as an excuse.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m telling you how I became someone who could do it.”
That silenced him.
Isabella looked exhausted.
“The first month I told myself we were delaying tests until your mother stabilized.”
Dante looked away.
“The next month I told myself Hale wasn’t sure.”
She continued.
“Then I found the divorce papers.”
Dante’s head turned back.
“What?”
“In your old office safe.”
He knew instantly which papers.
Drafts.
Never filed.
Prepared three weeks before the crash.
He had forgotten they existed.
Isabella watched his face.
“You remember.”
“Yes.”
“You were leaving me.”
“I hadn’t decided.”
“You had a property agreement and a list of what I could keep.”
“I was angry.”
“You had hired a lawyer.”
“So had you after the accident.”
“After.”
He said nothing.
She sat again.
“When I found those papers, I thought if you recovered, you would leave, take the company back, challenge every transfer I had made, and make sure I walked away with whatever your lawyers said I deserved.”
“That sounds like motive.”
“I know.”
“You expect sympathy?”
“No.”
“What do you expect?”
She looked at him.
“For you to understand that I did not wake up one morning and decide to poison my husband.”
“You just kept making the same decision at night.”
Her face broke.
Dante heard his own words after they left his mouth.
They were cruel.
They were also true.
Isabella whispered, “Yes.”
The simplicity of it emptied some of the anger from him.
Not forgiveness.
Nothing close.
Just exhaustion.
“Why Hale?”
“He needed money.”
“For what?”
“His practice was in trouble. A lawsuit. Tax debt. I don’t know everything.”
“Six hundred thousand.”
“Yes.”
“You paid him.”
“Through the company.”
“With my signature.”
“Yes.”
“To keep changing the medication.”
She hesitated.
“At first, to keep treating you privately.”
“And later?”
Her silence answered.
Dante’s fingers loosened from the armrest.
“Did he know why?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you I could recover?”
“He said there were no guarantees.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
Dante closed his eyes.
He could see his mother’s bedroom at the hospice.
The gray blanket over her knees.
Her hand resting on his wrist.
He had been drifting in and out.
She kept asking him to look at her.
He had blamed morphine even though the morphine had been hers.
A strange laugh escaped him.
Isabella frowned.
“What?”
“I kept apologizing to my mother because I couldn’t stay awake.”
Her face changed.
“Dante—”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t know that night would be—”
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
He looked down at his feet.
His left shoe sat slightly crooked on the footplate.
He tried to move it.
Nothing.
It did not matter.
Not then.
“What happened to the two million?”
Isabella stared.
He looked up.
“The missing money.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I bought the Park Avenue apartment from the trust.”
“You already owned it.”
“The trust held the note.”
“You paid it off.”
“Yes.”
“With company money.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Legal retainers. A separate account.”
“For after you left.”
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
At least that answer was clean.
“What do you want from me?”
Isabella looked almost confused.
“I don’t know.”
“You asked to meet.”
“I wanted you to hear it from me before Hale told it his way.”
“So this is reputation management.”
“Partly.”
He almost admired the honesty.
Almost.
“And the other part?”
She looked at him for a long time.
“I wanted to know whether any part of you remembered what you were like before the accident.”
Dante’s face went still.
“That sounds like you think I deserved it.”
“No.”
“It sounded exactly like that.”
“I don’t think you deserved what I did.”
“What do you think I deserved?”
“I think you deserved for me to leave.”
Silence.
Isabella wiped her face.
“I should have left you. I should have taken whatever money I could legally take. I should have let you hate me. Instead I stayed, and then you got hurt, and suddenly everyone told me I was extraordinary for staying.”
Dante remembered the articles.
The devoted wife.
The photographs.
Isabella beside his hospital bed.
Isabella pushing his chair at charity events until Dante ordered her to stop.
Isabella sleeping in a chair during his second surgery.
“I liked it,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“Being the good wife.”
He stared at her.
“People admired me. Your mother thanked me. Your employees listened to me. For the first time in our marriage, I had authority no one could take away by raising their voice.”
Dante’s throat tightened.
“And when I started getting better.”
“I was afraid of becoming small again.”
He looked at her for a long time.
“That may be the ugliest thing you’ve ever told me.”
“I know.”
He turned toward the elevator.
Isabella stood.
“Dante.”
He pressed the call button.
“Are you going to the police?”
He looked back.
“You committed fraud.”
“I know.”
“You paid a doctor to hide medical information.”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
“You gave me medication knowing it could reduce function I was trying to regain.”
Her lips pressed together.
“Yes.”
“You stole money.”
“Yes.”
He watched her.
“What answer are you hoping for?”
“I don’t know.”
The elevator arrived.
Marcus stood inside.
Dante rolled forward.
Isabella’s voice followed him.
“I did love you.”
Dante stopped.
Marcus looked away.
Dante did not turn around.
“That’s the part I believe.”
He entered the elevator.
The doors closed.
He did not see Isabella again for four months.
Rebecca wanted a negotiated civil resolution first.
May you like
Prosecutors became involved once the forged signatures and medical payments were documented.
The state medical board continued its investigation of Hale. Bellweather produced prescription records. Hale’s office administrator, after initially refusing to speak, eventually provided copies of messages she had preserved because several dosage changes made her uncomfortable.
