FORBIDDEN HEARTS

CHAPTER THREEThe Missing File

Isabella read the note again before breakfast, though she had already memorized every word.

Northbridge file — original copy still missing.

The sentence was short enough to fit on the back of a receipt, yet it had changed the way she saw

the house. Until yesterday, the locked study had been a family mystery, a painful room no one wanted

to discuss. Now the mystery had a name, a place, and a missing document. It had edges she could hold

in her mind.

She had not taken the scrap of paper from the library. She had left it on the windowsill exactly

where she found it, partly because she did not want anyone to know she had seen it and partly because

she was not certain she was ready to become the kind of person who collected evidence in secret.

But she had written the words in her notebook. That, she told herself, was different.

By eight o’clock, the mansion had brightened beneath a break in the clouds. Isabella went

downstairs with her notebook tucked inside her cardigan pocket. The breakfast room was empty except

for a plate of sliced fruit and a pot of coffee. She made tea and sat near the window, trying to decide

whether to speak to Alexander before he left for town.

She did not have to decide for long. He entered a few minutes later, carrying his phone and wearing

a dark jacket.

“You’re up early again,” he said.

“I could say the same about you.”

“I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Is it a good reputation?”

“Depends who you ask.”

He reached for coffee. Isabella watched him, trying to work out how to mention the note without

making it sound as though she had been snooping. In the end, she chose the simplest route.

“I found something in the library yesterday.”

Alexander’s hand stopped above the coffee pot. “What kind of something?”

“A scrap of paper. It said, ‘Northbridge file — original copy still missing.’”

He lowered the pot carefully. The small movement told her more than an immediate denial would

have.

“Where did you find it?”

“On the windowsill.” 2

“Did you take it?”

“No. I left it where it was.”

He looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing not only her answer but the decision behind it.

“Good.”

“Good?”

“It means you didn’t disturb anything. And whoever left it might not know you saw it.”

“Who do you think left it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have a guess.”

“I have several guesses, and none of them is worth much without evidence.”

Isabella rested her hands around her mug. “You’re looking into the company records, aren’t you?”

Alexander’s eyes shifted toward the doorway. “I’m trying to understand what happened before

Mum died. There are gaps in the official account, and there are things Dad won’t explain.”

“Does your father know you’re doing this?”

“He knows I have questions. He doesn’t know everything I’ve been reading.”

“Why not?”

“Because every time I ask him about Northbridge, he says the office was closed after a

restructuring. Every time I ask about Mum’s work, he tells me she was under pressure and that I

shouldn’t confuse old business problems with her accident.” Alexander leaned back. “It sounds

reasonable until you hear it for the tenth time.”

Isabella thought of her mother’s expression when she admitted that she and Eleanor had

investigated the company’s accounts. “Mum said they found records that didn’t match. Payments

without clear purposes.”

Alexander’s face sharpened. “She told you that?”

“Yesterday. Not much more.”

“Did she say who was involved?”

“No. She said powerful people didn’t like being questioned.”

He gave a quiet, troubled laugh. “That sounds like Mum.”

“Do you think the accident wasn’t an accident?”

“I don’t know what I think.” He looked down at his hands. “I know I was told not to ask questions. I

know people who used to visit our house stopped coming. I know the company changed how it handled

certain records after she died. None of that proves anything. But it’s enough to make me keep looking.” 3

Isabella recognized the difference between suspicion and certainty. She had been tempted to build a

whole story around the note, but Alexander was right: a clue was not a conclusion.

“What is the Northbridge file supposed to contain?” she asked.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” He paused. “I found a reference to it in an old internal report.

The report mentioned a review of supplier payments and a set of original documents kept at the

Northbridge office. The file was supposed to be transferred to the main headquarters when the office

closed. But the inventory list says the transfer was never completed.”

“So the original file disappeared.”

“Or it was never properly recorded. Or it was moved and the paperwork was lost. There are

ordinary explanations.” He rubbed his forehead. “I keep reminding myself of that.”

“Because you don’t want to believe something worse?”

“Because I don’t want grief to turn every coincidence into proof.”

The honesty of the answer made Isabella quiet. She had been thinking of the mystery as a puzzle,

something she could solve by arranging the clues correctly. For Alexander, it was not a puzzle. It was

his mother’s life, and the possibility that the truth might be painful was not an abstract concern.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You don’t have to apologize for asking.” He looked at her. “Just be careful about what you

assume. People can get hurt when a suspicion becomes a story before anyone knows the facts.”

“I will.”

He nodded, accepting the promise. Then he stood and picked up his keys.

“I’m going to the company archive this morning. If I can find the original inventory, I may be able

to work out who handled the transfer.”

“Can I come?”

“No.”

The answer was so immediate that Isabella blinked. “You could at least pretend to consider it.”

“I’m not trying to be rude. The archive is in the main office, and I don’t want to involve you in

something we barely understand.”

“I’m already involved. My mother worked with Eleanor.”

“That makes it more complicated, not less.”

“Then let me decide whether I want to be involved.”

Alexander looked as though he might argue. Instead, he took a breath and lowered his voice.

“You’re right about one thing. It should be your decision. But I’m asking you to wait until I know what

I’m dealing with. I’ll tell you what I find.” 4

Isabella disliked the answer, mostly because it was sensible. “When?”

“Tonight.”

“You promise?”

“I promise I’ll tell you what I can. I won’t promise answers I don’t have.”

It was not the kind of promise she had hoped for, but it was more honest than the ones she had

heard from the adults so far. She nodded.

Alexander headed for the door, then paused. “One more thing. Don’t mention that note to Dad just

yet.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know whether he’s seen it, and I don’t want to accuse him of hiding something

when I don’t know who left it.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing by not telling him?”

He considered the question. “Maybe. I’m still working out the difference between caution and

secrecy.”

Then he left.

Isabella remained at the table, staring at the place where his cup had been. The house had taught her

several new things in two days: that a person could be kind and still withhold the truth; that grief could

make ordinary questions feel dangerous; and that even people who wanted honesty sometimes chose

silence because they were afraid of what honesty might cost.

She opened her notebook and wrote: Alexander is searching company archives. Northbridge

records may reveal who handled the missing file.

Then she underlined one sentence: A clue is not a conclusion.

She wanted to remember that.

By late morning, the mansion had returned to its quiet routine. Mrs. Ellis moved between rooms

with a list in her hand. A gardener crossed the lawn carrying a tray of tools. Somewhere upstairs, a

vacuum cleaner hummed. The ordinary sounds made the secrets seem almost ridiculous, as though

Isabella had invented them out of boredom.

She tried to focus on her university application. She opened her laptop, reviewed the personal

statement she had drafted, and changed three sentences. For twenty minutes, she managed to think

about her future rather than the Blackwood past.

Then her phone buzzed.

A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen.

Stop looking into Northbridge.

Isabella sat perfectly still. 5

The message contained no name, no explanation, and no threat beyond the blunt instruction. She

read it again, then checked the number. It was unfamiliar. She considered replying, but could not think

of a response that would help her understand who had sent it.

Her first instinct was to show Alexander. Her second was to tell her mother. Her third was to delete

it and pretend it had never arrived.

She did none of those things immediately.

Instead, she took a screenshot, wrote down the time, and put her phone beside the notebook. She did

not know whether the message was a prank, a warning, or an attempt to frighten her away from a

question that someone else had already been asking. But she knew it was connected to the file. The

timing was too precise to ignore.

She stood and walked to the window. The gardens were bright now, the wet paths gleaming beneath

the sun. From here, the mansion looked calm and orderly. A person passing the gates would have seen

nothing unusual.

Isabella wondered how many times the world had looked ordinary while something serious was

happening inside it.

At noon, she found Victoria in the conservatory, trimming the ends of a small arrangement of

flowers. Her mother looked up and smiled, though the smile faded when she saw Isabella’s expression.

“What happened?”

Isabella hesitated. She had promised herself she would not keep secrets just because the people

around her did. But she also remembered Victoria’s fear and Alexander’s warning. She did not want to

make her mother panic before she understood what the message meant.

“I received a strange text,” she said.

Victoria set down the scissors. “What did it say?”

Isabella showed her the screen.

Victoria read the message once. Then again. The colour seemed to leave her face.

“Where did this come from?”

“I don’t know. It’s an unknown number.”

“Have you replied?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t.” Victoria handed the phone back with fingers that were not quite steady. “Save it.

Don’t delete it. And don’t answer calls from that number if it tries again.”

“Mum, do you know who sent it?”

“No.”

“But you recognize what it means.” 6

Victoria turned away and looked through the conservatory glass. For a moment she seemed to be

listening for someone outside. “I know what it feels like when people want you to stop asking

questions.”

“Is that what happened to you and Eleanor?”

“Something like that.” Victoria faced Isabella again. “We were never given a message quite so

direct, but we understood that our work had made people uncomfortable.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“We tried to raise our concerns through the proper channels. Some were dismissed. Others were

passed from one person to another until no one seemed responsible for answering them.” She pressed

her fingertips against the edge of the workbench. “Eleanor wanted to keep going. I wanted to make sure

we had enough evidence before we did anything else.”

“Did you disagree?”

“Yes.” Victoria’s voice was low. “Not about whether the records mattered. We disagreed about

how much risk we should take. Eleanor believed that if the facts were clear, the truth would protect us. I

believed the truth needed protection too.”

Isabella thought of the woman in the photograph, holding her folder with a determined expression.

“Did you stop investigating?”

“I stepped back. Eleanor didn’t.” Victoria’s eyes shone with regret. “I told myself I was being

sensible. I told myself that if I stayed quiet for a while, I could return when things were safer. Then she

died, and I never found the courage to return.”

The admission hurt to hear, but it also made her mother seem less distant. Victoria was not a

woman who had never been afraid. She was a woman who had been afraid and had spent years trying to

live with the choice she made.

“Do you think someone is warning me because of what happened to Eleanor?” Isabella asked.

“I don’t know.” Victoria took a slow breath. “But I don’t want you investigating this alone. If the

message comes again, tell me. And tell Richard. Whatever our differences about the past, we should not

handle this carelessly.”

Isabella nodded. “Alexander went to the company archive.”

Victoria closed her eyes briefly. “Of course he did.”

“You knew he was looking?”

“I suspected. He has been asking Richard questions for months.” She gave a weary sigh. “I hoped

he would find a way to make peace with the things he cannot change.”

“Maybe he’s trying to find out what can still be changed.”

Victoria looked at her daughter, and for the first time that morning her expression held something

like pride. “You sound like Eleanor when you say things like that.” 7

Isabella did not know what to do with the comparison. It was both a compliment and a burden, a

suggestion that she had inherited a part of a woman she had never met.

“Did you and Eleanor have the original file?” she asked.

Victoria shook her head. “We had copies of some documents. Eleanor believed the originals were

kept at Northbridge. When the office closed, she was told the file had been transferred. Later, she found

a record suggesting it had not been received at headquarters.”

“So someone sent it, but no one recorded receiving it.”

“That was the concern. Eleanor requested the original file twice. The first request was approved.

The second was marked as completed, but she never received the documents.”

“Did she ever find it?”

“I don’t know. She was still searching when she died.”

The words settled heavily between them.

A door opened somewhere inside the house. Victoria straightened as if she had been caught saying

something she was not supposed to say. Isabella noticed the reaction and wished her mother did not

have to live in a constant state of listening for footsteps.

“I’m going to speak with Richard,” Victoria said. “Not to accuse him, but to make sure he knows

about the message.”

“Will you tell him everything?”

“I should have done that a long time ago.”

She touched Isabella’s cheek, then left the conservatory. Isabella remained beside the flowers,

looking at the clipped stems and the neat arrangement. It was strange how much effort people put into

making things look orderly after something had been broken.

That afternoon, Isabella tried to return to her university application. She wrote a paragraph about

the kind of work she hoped to do, then deleted it because it sounded too formal. She wrote another.

Outside, the clouds shifted and sunlight moved slowly across the desk.

At four thirty, her phone rang. The unknown number did not appear. Instead, Alexander’s name lit

the screen.

“I found the inventory,” he said without greeting.

Isabella sat upright. “And?”

“The Northbridge file was listed in a transfer schedule. It was packed, signed out, and assigned a

destination at headquarters. But the receiving signature is missing.”

“So someone sent it, but no one recorded receiving it.”

“Exactly. There’s another problem. The person responsible for the transfer was not a junior clerk. It

was a senior executive.” 8

“Who?”

“I’m verifying the name and signature. I don’t want to make an accusation until I know the records

are genuine.”

“Did you find anything about Eleanor?”

“Her name appears in the review notes. She requested the original file twice. The first request was

approved. The second was marked as completed, but the inventory suggests it never reached her.”

Isabella’s fingers tightened around the phone. “So someone marked a request completed when the

file wasn’t there.”

“That’s what it looks like. It could still be a recordkeeping mistake, but I don’t think we should

assume that.”

“Did you tell your father?”

“Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Why me?”

“Because your mother was involved, and because I said I’d tell you what I found.” He paused.

“Also, I received a message from an unknown number telling me to leave the old records alone.”

Isabella stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor. “You got one too?”

“What do you mean?”

She told him about her message. For several seconds, neither spoke.

“Did you save it?” he asked.

“Yes. Mum told me not to reply.”

“She’s right. Keep the screenshot and the original message. Don’t try to identify the sender

yourself.”

“Are you worried?”

“I’m taking it seriously.” His voice was controlled, but Isabella heard the tension beneath it. “We

need to stop treating this like a private family puzzle. If someone is trying to discourage us from

looking into old company records, we should document what happens and involve people who can

investigate properly.”

The shift in his thinking reassured her. “So what do we do?”

“First, I’m going to tell Dad what I found. Then we’ll decide how to preserve the records and report

the messages. We shouldn’t confront anyone based on a suspicion.”

“Agreed.”

“And Isabella?”

“Yes?” 9

“Don’t go to the old Northbridge site by yourself. I mean it.”

She glanced at the notebook on her desk. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“Good.”

He sounded as if he wanted to say something else, but the line stayed quiet. Isabella could imagine

him standing in the company archive, surrounded by boxes and paper records, trying to decide whether

the past was finally becoming clearer or merely more complicated.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said.

“I said I would.”

The call ended. Isabella sat slowly and looked at the notes she had made. A transfer schedule. A

missing receiving signature. A senior executive. Two anonymous messages. Eleanor’s requests for a

file that was supposedly available but never arrived.

The facts did not prove that anyone had caused Eleanor’s death. They did suggest that someone had

obstructed an investigation, and that the obstruction had continued long after the Northbridge office

closed.

For the first time, Isabella understood that the missing file might matter for reasons beyond the past.

It could explain why Eleanor had kept searching, why Victoria had been afraid, and why someone was

now watching the questions they asked.

At dinner, the family gathered around the same long table as the night before. The room looked

unchanged: polished silver, white flowers, candles in glass holders. But no one managed to pretend that

the evening was ordinary.

Richard listened while Alexander explained what he had found. He did not interrupt. When

Alexander mentioned the missing receiving signature, Richard’s face grew pale, though he tried to hide

it by reaching for his water.

“Who was responsible for the transfer?” Richard asked.

“I’m verifying the name,” Alexander replied. “I don’t want to make an accusation until I know the

records are genuine.”

Richard nodded slowly. “That’s sensible.”

“Do you remember the Northbridge closure?” Isabella asked.

“Yes. I approved the restructuring.” Richard folded his hands on the table. “I was told the office’s

records had been transferred and the closure completed properly.”

“Did you check?” Alexander asked.

“I relied on the reports I was given.”

“By whom?” 10

Richard looked at his son. “By people whose job it was to handle the transfer. I should have

checked more closely. At the time, there were several changes happening at once, and I believed the

process had been completed.”

“Did Mum ask you about the file?” Alexander asked.

Richard did not answer immediately. Victoria stared at her plate, her expression tense.

“Yes,” Richard said at last. “Eleanor asked me whether the original records had reached

headquarters. I told her I would look into it.”

“Did you?”

“I asked the department responsible for the transfer. They told me the file was being located. A few

days later, I was informed that the request had been resolved.”

“Did you see the file?” Isabella asked.

“No.”

The plainness of the answer was more disturbing than an excuse. Richard looked older than he had

that morning.

“Why didn’t you follow up?” Alexander asked.

“Because I believed the people handling it.” Richard’s voice tightened. “And because Eleanor and I

were not getting along well at the time. She thought I was protecting the company’s reputation. I

thought she was risking everything over documents she could not yet explain. I let that disagreement

become an excuse not to listen.”

Alexander’s eyes remained fixed on him. “Did you think the file was connected to her death?”

“No.” Richard swallowed. “Not then. I thought it was an internal matter that had been dealt with.

After the accident, I could barely bring myself to look at any of the records she had left behind. I told

myself there was no point reopening something that would only hurt us.”

“Did you ever find out who handled the transfer?” Isabella asked.

“I don’t remember the name. I can look through the old correspondence.” He paused. “I should

have done it years ago.”

No one spoke for a while. The admission did not solve anything, but it changed the shape of the

silence. Richard was no longer simply the man who refused to discuss Eleanor. He was also a man who

had chosen not to look too closely, and who was beginning to understand the cost of that choice.

Victoria reached for her glass, then set it down without drinking. “I should have told you what

Eleanor and I were doing,” she said to Richard. “I was afraid, and I thought silence would protect

Isabella.”

Richard looked at her with sadness. “I thought silence would protect Alexander.”

“Did it?” Alexander asked. 11

The question was quiet, not cruel. Richard’s face fell.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think it did.”

It was the most honest thing he had said all evening.

After dinner, Isabella went upstairs with her notebook. She wrote down the new information,

separating what they knew from what they suspected. She listed the transfer schedule, the missing

signature, Eleanor’s repeated requests, and Richard’s admission that he had not verified the file’s

arrival. She wrote the names of the people who might have access to the company’s old records, leaving

a blank space where the senior executive’s name would go once Alexander confirmed it.

Then she added a final note: The truth may be complicated. Do not confuse suspicion with proof.

She closed the notebook and placed it in the drawer beside her bed. The message from the unknown

number remained saved on her phone. She did not know who had sent it, and she did not know what

they feared the file would reveal.

But she knew this much: someone had noticed that the past was being examined again.

And someone wanted the search to stop.