The park was nearly empty at noon on a Thursday. A few joggers passed by, earbuds in, oblivious to everything but their pace. An elderly man fed pigeons near the fountain. A mother pushed a stroller along the path, cooing softly to her baby.
No one who looked like they were paying attention to two women sitting on a bench near the edge of Prospect Park.
I had chosen the location carefully. Public enough that we wouldn't stand out, isolated enough that we could talk without being overheard. I had taken three different subway lines to get here, doubled back twice, and left my phone at the apartment. If Damien was tracking me and I had to assume he was, I had given him nothing to follow.
Sarah Rodriguez arrived exactly on time. She wore jeans, a leather jacket, and sunglasses despite the overcast sky. She didn't look at me as she sat down, just pulled a folded newspaper from her bag and set it on the bench between us.
"Don't react to anything I tell you," she said quietly, her gaze fixed on the path ahead. "Keep your expression neutral. We're just two people having a conversation."
My heart was already racing, but I nodded. "Okay."
"I've been working on your case for two weeks. What I found..." She paused, and I saw her jaw tighten. "It's bigger than I expected. And a lot more dangerous."
"Tell me."
She opened the newspaper a prop, I realized, something to look at while we talked. "Marcus Chen, the PI who was asking questions about your mother. I traced the payments back to an offshore shell company registered in the Cayman Islands. Triple-Seven Holdings, LLC. The ownership is deliberately obscured through multiple layers of corporate entities, but whoever set it up knew what they were doing. This wasn't some amateur trying to hide their identity. This was professional-grade financial engineering."
My hands clenched in my lap. "Can you find out who owns it?"
"I'm still working on that. But here's what I can tell you: Triple-Seven Holdings has been active for eight years.
"Someone's been searching for her this entire time," I whispered.
"It looks that way. And they've spent serious money doing it. I estimate at least half a million in investigator fees, legal research, and information acquisition over the years. Whoever is behind this has resources and patience."
I thought of Damien, of the way he reacted when I mentioned my mother's name. The flash of something in his eyes recognition, or guilt, or fear. Did he have the resources to fund an eight-year investigation? Absolutely. But why would he care about Isabella Castellano?
"What else did you find?" I asked.
Sarah flipped a page in the newspaper. Tucked inside was a manila folder. She slid it toward me without looking. "Your mother was preparing to disappear. I found evidence of a second identity: Isabel Martinez. Passport application filed three months before the accident, never picked up. Bank accounts in that name opened at the same time, with initial deposits totaling two hundred thousand dollars. And..." She paused. "A safety deposit box in Madrid. It's still being paid for."
The world seemed to tilt. "She's in Spain?"
"Maybe. Or maybe she just wanted it to look that way. But the fact that the box is still active, still being paid for after all these years? That suggests someone is maintaining it. Someone who's alive."
My breath came in short gasps. I forced myself to breathe slowly, evenly. Don't react. Keep your expression neutral.
"Show me," I said.
Sarah turned another page. Inside were photocopies, bank statements with my mother's signature (or a very good forgery), the passport application with a photo that was unmistakably Isabella but with darker hair and glasses, rental agreements for the safety deposit box.
"I have a contact in Madrid," Sarah continued. "For the right price, he can check what's in the box. But Elena, you need to understand if we do that, we're committing to this investigation fully. There's no going back. And if your mother did fake her death, there was a reason. A damn good one. We might be putting her in danger by digging this up."
"I need to know," I said. "Even if it puts me in danger too."
Sarah finally turned to look at me. Behind her sunglasses, I couldn't see her eyes, but her expression was grim. "It might. Because there's more."
"What?"
"I have a contact in the Westchester County Sheriff's office. He pulled the accident scene photos for me." She flipped to another page, and my stomach lurched. Black and white images of a car my mother's car wrapped around a tree. Glass everywhere. The driver's side was completely crushed.
"No skid marks," Sarah said quietly. "No signs of defensive driving, no attempt to brake or swerve. The car just... went off the road at high speed and hit the tree head-on."
"She could have fallen asleep. Or had a medical emergency."
"Possibly. But look at this." She pointed to one of the photos. "See the angle of impact? The car hit the tree almost perfectly straight on. Not at an angle like you would expect if someone lost control. It's consistent with either deliberate action or…."the car being remotely controlled," I finished. My voice sounded hollow.
Sarah nodded. "I'm not saying that's what happened. But it's suspicious. And there's more. The body was cremated within forty-eight hours. That's unusually fast, especially for a wealthy family. Usually there's a wake, viewings, time for extended family to arrive. But your mother was cremated before most people even knew she was dead."
"My father insisted on it," I said numbly. "He said it was what she would have wanted. That she hated the idea of people staring at her body."
"Did she?"
I tried to remember. Has my mother ever mentioned her funeral preferences? I couldn't recall a single conversation about it. We had been a Catholic family and cremation wasn't the norm. We should have had a traditional burial, a mass, the full ceremony.
Instead, my father had her cremated immediately and scattered her ashes in the ocean. Private. No witnesses.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I never thought to question it."
"And the coroner who signed the death certificate? Dr. Raymond Walsh. He retired six months after your mother's accident and moved to the Bahamas. Lives in a very nice house on the beach now. Much nicer than a county coroner could typically afford."
The implication hung in the air between us.
"You think he was paid off," I said.
"I think it's worth investigating. But here's the real evidence." Sarah pulled out one more document: cell phone records, pages of numbers and tower locations. "Your mother's phone. I pulled the records through a... let's call it an unofficial channel. Look at the dates."
I scanned the pages. The records showed normal activity for weeks leading up to the day of the accident. Calls to my number, to household staff, to various Manhattan locations.
And then, two days after she supposedly died the phone pinged a cell tower in Lower Manhattan.
"That's impossible," I whispered.
"Unless someone else had her phone. Or unless she was still alive and using it before ditching it for good." Sarah pointed to the final entry. "After that ping, nothing. The phone went completely dark. No more activity, ever."
I stared at the records until the numbers blurred. My mother's phone, active two days after her death. It was the proof I needed, the confirmation of what I'd begun to suspect.
Isabella Castellano had faked her death.
She had planned meticulously the second identity, the offshore accounts, the safety deposit box in Madrid. She orchestrated the accident, or someone had done it for her. She had paid off the coroner, or someone had. She left me behind without a word, without a goodbye, without any explanation beyond that half-written letter.
And she stayed gone for eight years.
"Why?" "Why would she leave me?"
Sarah's expression softened. "I don't know. But whatever she was running from, it was serious enough that she gave up everything. Her family, her home, her identity. That's not a decision anyone makes lightly."
I thought of the documents I found in her study. The newspaper clippings about environmental violations and corporate cover-ups.
My mother had discovered something. Something about my father, or his business, or...anything.
The thought sent ice through my veins.
What if my mother had discovered something? Something criminal, something deadly? What if that was why she ran?
"Elena?" Sarah's voice pulled me back. "Are you okay?"
"No." I closed the folder with shaking hands. "But I need to keep going. I need to find her."
"What about your man? Have you told him any of this?"
"No," I said. "I haven't told him anything."
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I thought I did. But now..."
"My advice?" Sarah leaned back on the bench, her gaze still fixed forward. "Don't tell him. Not yet. Not until we know more. Because if your mother was running from someone powerful, someone with resources and connections, then that person is still out there. And they're still looking for her. If you tip your hand too early, you could put yourself and your mother in serious danger."
"What do I do?" I asked.
"You keep playing the role. The grieving daughter, the loyal woman. You don't give him any reason to suspect. And you let me keep digging. I'll follow the money trail. I'll reach out to my contact in Madrid about the safety deposit box. And I'll keep looking into the accident, into Dr. Walsh, into anyone who might have helped your mother disappear."
"How long will that take?"
"Weeks. Maybe months. This kind of investigation takes time."
"Do what you can," I said. "As quickly as you can. I'll pay whatever it costs."
Sarah stood, tucking the newspaper under her arm. "One more thing. Be very careful about your electronic communications. Assume your phone is monitored, your emails are being read. If you need to contact me, use a burner phone or meet in person. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Good." She adjusted her sunglasses. "I'll be in touch when I have more. In the meantime, Elena? Watch your back."
I sat on the bench for a long time after she left, staring at nothing, my mind spinning.
But what if Sarah was right?
I stood up, my legs shaky, and started walking. I had no destination in mind, just a desperate need to move, to think, to process everything I had learned.
My mother was alive.
And I was caught in the middle, with no one to trust and nowhere to run.
I pulled my jacket tighter against the wind and kept walking, the truth heavy in my chest like a stone.
And I just had to figure out which was which.