Marta’s Price

Chapter 15 - Marta’s Price

Marta did not run.

That surprised everyone.

When Detective Alvarez arrived at her apartment, Marta opened the door wearing slippers and a sweater and said, “I wondered how long it would take.”

She was thirty-nine, a single mother of two teenagers, and had worked weekends at the Orsini estate for five years.

Josephine asked to be present for part of the interview.

Alvarez allowed it.

Marta looked at her and began to cry.

“I’m sorry.”

Josephine sat across from her.

“How much?”

Marta wiped her face.

“What?”

“How much did he pay you?”

“Twenty thousand.”

Josephine’s stomach tightened.

“For the archive?”

“For information at first.”

“What information?”

“Your schedule. Mr. Orsini’s schedule. Which rooms were locked. Who had keys.”

Raphael, standing at the back of the room, said nothing.

Marta stared at her hands.

“Conrad said it was for a civil case. He said the family was hiding financial records.”

“And you believed him?”

“I wanted to.”

That answer was brutally ordinary.

Josephine understood it better than she wanted to.

Marta’s oldest son had been accepted to college. Her rent had increased. Her mother needed dental work insurance would not cover.

Twenty thousand dollars did not arrive labeled betrayal.

It arrived labeled relief.

“What happened the night of the break-in?” Alvarez asked.

Marta swallowed.

“Conrad gave me a uniform like Josephine’s. He said I only needed to open the archive and take one folder.”

“You wore a face mask?”

“A silicone one. It looked ridiculous up close.”

“Not on the security camera.”

“No.”

“Who altered the footage?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did you take?”

“The Dileia file.”

“Where did you deliver it?”

“A car in Providence.”

“Who was driving?”

“I never saw his face.”

Josephine asked, “The storage locker?”

Marta looked at her.

“I took one envelope from there.”

Raphael stepped forward.

“What envelope?”

“Conrad sent me the key.”

Josephine’s skin prickled.

“The missing material.”

Marta nodded.

“What was inside?”

“I didn’t open it.”

“Where is it?”

“I gave it to Conrad.”

Alvarez leaned forward.

“When?”

“The night before he went to the hospital.”

Josephine looked at Raphael.

Before the staged stabbing.

Conrad had the missing evidence.

“Did he tell you why he wanted it?”

Marta shook her head.

“But after I gave it to him, he said something strange.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Now nobody can prove Martin was there for me.’”

Silence.

Alvarez’s face sharpened.

“Exact words?”

“Yes.”

That was the first direct link.

Not enough alone.

But closer.

Marta agreed to cooperate.

She also turned over every message Conrad had sent her through an encrypted app. Most were vague.

One was not.

IF THE BOY’S FAMILY STARTS ASKING ABOUT PATERNITY, TELL ME IMMEDIATELY.

Josephine read it twice.

Conrad had known Wyatt mattered before the DNA test.

He had lied when he said he only learned recently.

“Why watch Wyatt?” Josephine asked.

Marta’s voice was small.

“I don’t know.”

Raphael did.

“Because if Dileia’s son ever became public, people would ask why she hid him.”

And that question led to Conrad.

By evening, police obtained a search warrant for Conrad’s home and office.

They recovered shredded financial records, copies of Dileia’s forged account documents, and a photograph of Martin Vale’s black sedan taken two days after the crash.

But the missing envelope from locker 314 was not there.

Neither was the cut section of Dileia’s tape.

Conrad posted bail on evidence tampering charges.

He went home under restrictions while the larger investigation continued.

Raphael was furious.

Alvarez was not.

“Let him go home.”

Raphael looked at her.

“You sound pleased.”

“People who think they have one last secret tend to visit it.”

Raphael understood.

A watch was placed on Conrad.

For forty-eight hours, he went nowhere unusual.

Then, at 11:30 p.m. on the third night, he left his apartment.

Josephine was asleep at the estate when Raphael’s phone rang.

Alvarez.

“Conrad is moving.”

“Where?”

“South.”

Raphael dressed.

Josephine appeared in the hallway before he reached the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere you are coming.”

She folded her arms.

“That sentence is not as effective as you think.”

“Josephine.”

“If this is about Conrad, I’m coming.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I would like one person I care about to stay out of danger when asked.”

The sentence stopped her.

Raphael realized what he had said.

So did she.

His face softened.

“Stay with Wyatt.”

Josephine’s anger faded.

“Call me.”

“Yes.”

“Not Gideon. You.”

“Yes.”

Raphael left with Alvarez’s team following Conrad at a distance.

The route led not to a bank.

Not to a lawyer’s office.

Not to the warehouse.

Conrad drove toward the old crash site.

He stopped near a strip of woods and walked with a flashlight.

Police watched.

Conrad knelt beside a stone drainage wall and removed a waterproof container hidden behind loose rocks.

Alvarez moved in.

Conrad saw her.

For one second, he froze.

Then he turned and ran.

He did not get far.

Inside the container was the missing envelope.

The cut tape.

And a second letter from Dileia.

Raphael read it at the station near dawn.

Raph,

If Conrad sends Martin after me, he will say Martin acted alone. He always makes someone else carry the worst part.

I made copies of everything.

If I do not reach you tonight, believe Sam.

Believe the baby exists.

And please, for once in your life, answer your phone.

Raphael stopped reading.

Josephine’s call came at that exact moment.

He answered.

“Did you find it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it enough?”

Raphael looked through the glass at Conrad sitting in an interview room.

“For the first time,” he said, “I think it might be.”

Then Alvarez entered holding one more document from the container.

A signed statement.

Not from Dileia.

From Martin Vale.

Written eight years earlier, one year before his death.

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And the first line read:

**My brother Conrad told me to stop Dileia Orsini before she reached Raphael, and I understood that he did not care whether she survived.**