CHAPTER 13 — THE MISSING MINUTE
The suite footage clearly showed Isabella’s attack.
But one minute was missing.
The camera skipped from Khloe falling to Marcus entering.
Security blamed an attempted network breach.
Gabriel did not believe it.
“Someone wanted to hide what happened during those sixty seconds.”
A forensic technician reconstructed fragments from the damaged file.
The images were distorted.
Khloe lay on the floor.
Isabella stood over her.
Then the suite door opened slightly.
Someone’s hand appeared.
A woman’s hand.
She passed Isabella a small object.
Isabella looked frightened.
The hand disappeared.
The door closed.
“What did she receive?” Khloe asked.
The technician enhanced the image.
It was a syringe.
The same type found beside Khloe’s hospital bed hours later.
Isabella had been given the drug during the attack.
But she had not used it.
Gabriel returned to the interrogation room.
Isabella was shaking.
“Who passed you the syringe?”
“I don’t know.”
“You looked directly at her.”
“She wore a veil.”
“A veil?”
“She came from the gala downstairs. Some of the donors were wearing masquerade masks for the charity auction.”
Gabriel placed the ruby brooch on the table.
“Was she wearing this?”
Isabella stared at it.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She leaned forward.
“The woman had a scar across her hand. A long white scar.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“What?”
“My sister had that scar,” he whispered.
Isabella frowned.
“Your sister?”
“Khloe’s mother.”
“That’s impossible.”
Gabriel looked toward the damaged footage.
Celeste Cole had supposedly died nineteen years ago.
Yet someone with her scar had entered Khloe’s suite during the attack.
Isabella grabbed his sleeve.
“She whispered something to me.”
May you like
“What?”
“She said, ‘Don’t hurt the child. The wrong Thorne is watching.’”
