Page 71 of Isabelle’s Forbidden Love

Together they walked up the seven flights of stairs to the top level where the executive offices were located. Isabelle’s office was on this floor, because her father was grooming her to take over Scanguards one day. Whether that would change, because by now her father had to know that she’d betrayed Scanguards for the man she loved, she didn’t know. And it didn’t matter anymore. Having been fooled by Orlando didn’t exactly make her great leadership material. It made her look stupid.

Still, something about Orlando’s confession didn’t sit right with her. In fact, it was two things that seemed off: firstly, Orlando hadn’t confessed to killing Margarite’s family, and secondly, Ines, the housekeeper who’d supposedly loved the Arnaud family, felt no anger toward Orlando. Why? Orlando was keeping something from her. And she needed to find out what. Maybe Ines could shed more light on Orlando’s behavior.

But first things first. She needed her cell phone so Nelson could get a hold of her once he’d figured out how to find Dennis LaRuson.

Arriving at the top floor, Cooper first checked whether anybody was in the hallway, before he opened the door wider. They quickly made their way to Isabelle’s office, but before she could open the door, she heard the sound of another door opening. She looked over her shoulder and saw Thomas step into the corridor. Their gazes met.

“Isabelle!” He rushed toward her. “Thank God you’re okay.”

“I’m fine, Thomas.” She sighed. There was no escaping the inevitable now that Thomas knew she was here. “Guess I’m gonna have to face my father now.”

“Samson left fifteen minutes ago with Gabriel and a bunch of others to bring in Orlando. We figured out where he’s hiding. I’d better call him to tell him you’re okay.”

“Fuck!” Isabelle cursed.

37

When Orlando was dressed, and Scanguards still hadn’t entered the flat, he collected all of Isabelle’s belongings and put them into the travel bag. He could smell the scent of her body on the top she’d worn the night before, and held the item to his nose, pressing his face into it to soak up her scent one last time. Everything inside him yearned for him to run after her and make her understand why he’d had to kill Margarite. But the fear that she would reject him, even if she knew about the circumstances that had led to his actions, stopped him. He was a coward, plain and simple.

Orlando cast one last glance at the bedroom, before he took Isabelle’s bag and his own knapsack and dropped both of them in the open-plan living room. He let his eyes roam there too, when they fell on a manila folder on the coffee table. It was the Hong murder file Isabelle had brought with her to continue investigating the case.

He walked toward the table and bent down to reach for the file, but realized that his vision was blurry, and he picked up only one end of it. The file fell open and sheets of paper spread on the coffee table and the carpet. He dropped down on the couch, and put his face into his hands. Tears were streaming down his face now. They were the reason why his vision was blurry. He tried to push them back, not wanting the men from Scanguards to see him like this when they came, but failed.

So he tried harder, until the tears finally dried and his vision became clear again. With robotic movements, he began to collect the pieces of paper and tried to put them back into the file in the correct order, glancing at every sheet, briefly reading what evidence Isabelle and her colleagues had collected. While Isabelle had brought him up to speed on Scanguards’ investigation into the death of Wayne Hong, there were additional notes in the file that Orlando hadn’t seen before.

But now he saw everything, and finally, the truth stared him in the face.

Somebody had written notes by hand on some of the print-outs pertaining to Hong. It wasn’t the notes themselves that now revealed to him what he’d been searching for, but the handwriting. It was identical to the handwriting on the two anonymous notes he’d received: notes written by Dennis LaRuson.

Whoever had made the annotations in Hong’s file was Dennis LaRuson, the man who’d not only turned Margarite against Orlando, but had killed two people in San Francisco just so he could frame Orlando for it. And if this person had made notes in Isabelle’s file, then Isabelle had met him. For all he knew, Dennis LaRuson had infiltrated Scanguards and could get to Isabelle at any time.

Fuck!

Panicked, he leafed through the file again, looking at anything that could reveal who’d written the notes, when a business card fell out of the stack. It had gotten caught by a paperclip. He turned the card over and read it.

Nelson Sarduni, San Francisco Police Department, it read. Below the name was the address of the police station and a phone number.

Isabelle had mentioned a police liaison she’d worked with on the Hong case, but he couldn’t remember if she’d mentioned a name. Was this the officer who’d given her access to Hong’s house? Given that many of the papers that were annotated by hand were those that were clearly printouts from the police’s databases, it was very likely that Nelson Sarduni had made those notes.

He read the business card again, and the letters seemed to blur in front of his eyes. In order to refocus his eyes, he looked away from the card for a moment, and his eyes fell on the printout from the Canadian fingerprint system: Dennis LaRuson’s rap sheet.

The letters suddenly scrambled in front of his inner eye, and he finally saw it. Same number of letters in both names.

Fuck! This couldn’t be happening.

Dennis LaRuson had infiltrated the San Francisco Police Department so he could manipulate the evidence in the two crimes and frame Orlando for the murders he’d committed himself. And what was even worse: Scanguards probably trusted him. And Isabelle had no reason to suspect that the killer was the man who was assisting her in the murder investigation. LaRuson could get to her whenever he wanted to.

He had to warn Isabelle.

Orlando pulled his cell phone from his pocket and tapped on the number for Isabelle’s burner phone. It went straight to voicemail without even ringing, which indicated that she’d switched it off.

“Isabelle, listen to me. You’re in danger. Nelson Sarduni from the SFPD is Dennis LaRuson. I recognize the handwriting from the notes in the Hong murder file. It’s identical to the handwriting on the anonymous notes I received. Please, Isabelle, stay away from him. Go to your father. Have him protect you. Please!”

Almost shaking with worry for her, he punched in the number for Isabelle’s regular, Scanguards-issued phone. It rang once, before it too went to voicemail. Clearly, Isabelle didn’t want to talk to him. She was ignoring him. He left the same message there as on her burner.

How long would it take until she listened to the voicemails? Would she ignore his messages, because she couldn’t even bear to listen to his voice? He had to do something else, make sure she got the message, no matter how.

Isabelle would pick up the call from another Scanguards staff member. That was it! Earlier, when he’d looked outside to see if Samson and his men were coming to get him, he’d seen Benjamin block the garage door with his Porsche. He was still out there now. And thankfully, the sun had just set. He could run outside, and have Benjamin call Isabelle to warn her about Nelson Sarduni. She would listen to Benjamin.