Claiming His Secret Son(4)

Now, ten years later, Murdock showed no signs of moving on. He’d have to shove him off the ledge soon, no matter if it would be like losing his right arm for real.

Murdock’s current silence made Richard regret his outburst more. His number two prided himself on always anticipating his needs and surpassing his expectations. The last thing he wanted was to abuse such loyalty.

Before he made a retraction, Murdock talked, his tone betraying no resentment or mortification.

“Very well. At first, that woman appeared to be just another colleague of Dr. Anderson’s. I ran a check on her, as I always do, and found nothing of note. But a development made me dig deeper. I discovered she’d changed her name legally five years ago, just before she made her first entry into the United States after a six-year hiatus. Her name was...”

“Isabella Burton.”

Murdock digested the fact that Richard already knew her. He’d told neither him nor Rafael about the intensely personal mission he’d undertaken, or about her.

Murdock continued, “She’s now Dr. Isabella Sandoval.”

Sandoval. That wasn’t either of her maiden names. Coming from Colombia, she’d had two. She must have been trying to become someone else when she’d adopted the new surname, after what had happened to her husband. That would also explain the changes in her appearance. And she was a doctor now.

Murdock went on, “But that wasn’t what made me wary—what made me single out her meeting with Dr. Anderson to present to you. It’s because I found a gaping thirteen-year hole in her history. From the age of twelve to the age of twenty-five, I couldn’t find a shred of information on her.”

Of course. She’d wiped clean the time she’d been Burton’s wife, and for some reason only known to her, years before that. No doubt to hide more incriminating evidence that would prevent her from being accepted by any respectful society.

“The information trail starts when she was twenty-six, when she started a four-year surgical residency in Colombia, in affiliation with a pediatric surgery program in California. It was a special ‘out of the match’ residency arrangement with the chief of surgery of a major teaching hospital. She obtained her US credentials and board certification last year. Then a week ago, she arrived in the United States and signed a one-year lease on a six-bedroom house in the Forest Hills Gardens section of Queens. She is here at the behest of doctors Rose and Jeffrey Anderson to start working in their private practice as a full partner, major shareholder and board member.”

After that, Richard didn’t know when he ended the call.

He only knew he was replaying that video over and over, Murdock’s words a revolving loop in his mind.

Isabella. She was going to be his sister’s partner.

Swearing under his breath, he almost cracked the remote in two as he pressed the off button.

Like hell she was.

* * *

Four hours later Richard felt as if the driver’s seat of his Rolls Royce Phantom was sprouting red-hot needles.

It had been more than two hours since he’d parked across the street from his sister’s house. He’d driven here immediately when Murdock had called back saying he’d neglected to tell him Isabella was having dinner there tonight. She had yet to make an exit.

What was taking the bloody woman that long? What kind of dinner lasted more than four hours?

This alone told him things were worse than he’d first thought. Isabella seemed to be a close friend of his sister’s, not just a prospective partner. And though Murdock hadn’t been able to pinpoint the events leading to this bizarre status quo, Richard was certain this wasn’t an innocent friendship. Not on Isabella’s side. She always had an angle. And obtained her objectives through deception and manipulation. Her medical qualifications themselves had probably been obtained through some meticulously constructed fraud.

Yet that was all conjecture. He had nothing solid to explain how Rose and her husband had developed such a deep connection with her that they’d invite her to be their equal partner in their life’s crowning achievement. She’d made herself so invisible, her past so untraceable she’d fallen off Murdock’s radar until now, when she was about to be fully lodged into their lives.

He’d torn over here once Murdock had informed him they’d finished dinner and coffee, expecting to intercept her soon afterward as she left. That had been—he flicked a glance at his watch—two and a half bloody hours ago.

Every minute of those he’d struggled with the urge to storm inside and drag her out.

He hadn’t stayed out of his sister’s life only to let that siren infect it with the ugliness of her past, the malice of her intentions and the exploitation in her blood.