The Story Conrad Wanted Them to Believe

Chapter 14 - The Story Conrad Wanted Them to Believe

Conrad claimed Raphael planted the gun.

He said it calmly, from a private hospital room with two detectives standing nearby and a television playing silently above the bed.

Raphael listened without interrupting.

Josephine stood beside Detective Alvarez.

Conrad looked pale, but not frightened.

“Raphael has always believed I failed Dileia,” he said. “Now he needs someone alive to blame.”

Alvarez asked, “Why would the weapon be in your room?”

“Because someone put it there.”

“Who had access?”

“Hospital staff. Visitors. Security.”

His eyes moved to Raphael.

“Powerful men can arrange access.”

Josephine saw Raphael’s jaw tighten.

Conrad continued.

“My relationship with Dileia was private and complicated. Yes, Wyatt is my son. I learned that conclusively only after the recent test.”

“That is not what you told us,” Josephine said.

Conrad turned to her.

“I told you what Dileia told me.”

“You said she told you Samuel was the father.”

“I said she implied it.”

“No. You used his name.”

Conrad smiled faintly.

“Memory becomes emotional under stress.”

Josephine understood then why he had been a successful lawyer for so long.

He did not need a lie to be elegant.

He only needed it to make everyone else sound uncertain.

Alvarez placed an evidence photograph on the table.

“The weapon is registered to a private security company that dissolved ten years ago.”

Conrad’s expression did not change.

“The owner?”

“Martin Vale.”

For the first time, Conrad blinked.

Josephine looked at Raphael.

“Your brother?” Alvarez asked.

Conrad’s voice tightened.

“Half brother.”

“Where is he?”

“Dead.”

“When?”

“Nine years ago.”

Raphael spoke.

“Car accident.”

Conrad looked at him.

“You remember.”

“I remember everyone who attended my sister’s funeral.”

Martin Vale had been there.

Josephine felt a chill.

Alvarez continued.

“Your brother’s company had three fleet vehicles. One matches damage documented at Dileia Orsini’s crash scene.”

Conrad looked toward the window.

“You think Martin was driving.”

“We think you know.”

Conrad’s mouth flattened.

He asked for his attorney.

The interview ended.

Outside, Raphael walked fast enough that Josephine had to catch up.

“You knew Martin?”

“Barely.”

“What kind of man was he?”

“Conrad without restraint.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It was not meant to be.”

They stopped near the elevators.

Josephine lowered her voice.

“Do you think Martin caused the crash?”

“Yes.”

“On Conrad’s orders?”

Raphael did not answer.

That was the missing piece.

Motive was not enough.

Conrad had stolen money through Dileia’s accounts. Dileia planned to expose him. He had fathered her child. She planned to leave.

But ordering his own brother to chase her off a road was different from lying afterward.

They needed proof.

Gideon provided the first piece.

That evening, he brought Raphael an old cell phone.

Not a smartphone.

A black flip phone scratched across the back.

“Vittorio’s.”

Raphael stared.

“You kept his phone?”

“He threw it at me after the crash.”

“Why?”

“He wanted me to call Conrad.”

Josephine leaned forward.

“What happened when you did?”

“Conrad answered on the first ring.”

Raphael’s eyes narrowed.

“At two in the morning.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He asked one question.”

Gideon looked sick.

“He said, ‘Is she dead?’”

No one spoke.

Josephine whispered, “Before you told him there had been a crash.”

“Yes.”

Raphael held out his hand.

“Does the phone still work?”

“No battery.”

“But the SIM?”

“Still inside.”

Detective Alvarez sent it to the lab.

Old network records were incomplete, but the phone itself contained one saved voicemail.

Timestamp: 1:09 a.m.

Seventeen minutes before Vittorio called Gideon after the crash.

Conrad’s voice.

“Vittorio, call me. Martin says they changed roads. He’s staying with them. We need to stop her before she gets to Raphael.”

Josephine listened twice.

Raphael listened once.

The room remained silent after the message ended.

It was not a murder confession.

But it proved Conrad knew Martin was following Dileia.

It proved they were trying to stop her.

And it proved Raphael had been the destination.

His sister had been trying to reach him.

Again.

That knowledge broke something old inside him.

Josephine saw it happen.

She touched his hand.

“You were twenty-three.”

“I ignored her call.”

“You were twenty-three.”

“She was trying to get to me.”

“You did not know.”

Raphael looked at her.

His eyes were wet, though no tears fell.

Josephine squeezed his fingers.

“Do not let tonight rewrite your past.”

His own words.

The ones he had given her on the highway.

He looked down.

Then back at her.

A faint, painful smile.

“Annoyingly wise.”

“I learned from someone irritating.”

Later that night, Alvarez called with news.

The stab wound that put Conrad in surgery had been reevaluated.

The angle and depth were unusual.

Not impossible for an attacker.

But consistent with a staged injury.

More importantly, security footage showed Conrad entering the garage alone.

No robber ever appeared.

Raphael listened.

“So he hurt himself to look like a victim.”

“Possibly. We’re still investigating.”

“Why?”

“To redirect suspicion. Buy sympathy. Explain missing time.”

Josephine looked toward the old ledger.

Missing time.

The break-in.

The storage locker.

The stolen section of Dileia’s tape.

Conrad had not been at the warehouse that morning.

But Martin was dead.

Someone else had been cleaning up for him.

The next morning, Mrs. Roz found a staff phone hidden beneath a cabinet in the service hall.

On it were photographs of Josephine’s uniforms.

The archive door.

The hospital.

And Raphael’s study window.

The last photograph showed the person holding the phone reflected faintly in a silver serving tray.

Josephine enlarged the image.

She knew the face.

Everyone in the house did.

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It belonged to Marta, the Saturday housekeeper Josephine had offered as her replacement the night Wyatt collapsed.

**The woman Josephine trusted to cover her shift had been watching the Orsini house from the inside.**