Fallon swallowed some coffee and watched Isabella sip her green tea. He could see that she was composing herself, trying to decide where to start her narrative. He searched for a way in.
“What did you mean when you said you were born off the grid?” he asked.
She looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Ever heard of the Iceberg website?”
“That bizarre conspiracy-theory website run by some nut who calls himself the Sentinel?” Fallon grimaced. “Sure, I know it. Some folks say I’ve got conspiracy issues, but I’m a piker compared to the Sentinel. That guy is so far over the horizon, he’ll never come back. He must have lost touch with reality long ago.”
“Think so?”
“He’s definitely looney tunes.”
“So why do you monitor his website?”
Fallon shrugged. “Because sometimes he hits on a nugget of solid information that I can plug in to one of my case files. Like they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The problem with whatever I get from the Iceberg site is that the bits of good data are always tangled up in one of the Sentinel’s crazy wheels-within-wheels, circles-within-circles fantasies. Teasing out the truth can take hours of research. There is no logical foundation to the Sentinel’s theories and therefore no meaningful context. The guy is a classic paranoid conspiracy nut.”
She raised her brows. “You, on the other hand, have context, is that it?”
“Makes all the difference,” he assured her. “Case in point. The Sentinel will happen on a small hint of hard information about Nightshade and then embed it into a fantasy of alien abduction. It’s useless in that fantasy context, so no one pays any attention. But I can sometimes fit the data into my own investigation because I do have context.” He paused. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen anything new on the Iceberg site for a while. Maybe the Sentinel finally went on meds. To tell you the truth, I’ll miss him.”
“No,” she said coolly. “The Sentinel didn’t go on meds. He was murdered.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe.”
“Yeah, there was some chatter about that a while back online but it faded. That’s the thing about the Sentinel. You can’t believe anything you hear about him. I wouldn’t put it past him to fake his own murder just to stir up more conspiracy theories.”
“Believe me when I tell you that I am praying that she did exactly that.”
Fallon stilled. “She?”
“The Sentinel is a woman. She pretends to be male online because it adds another layer of cover.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the Sentinel raised me after my parents were killed in a plane crash,” Isabella said. “I’m her granddaughter.”
Fallon felt as if he’d been poleaxed. He sat forward abruptly, automatically heightening his talent. “You’re serious.”
“The reason you never found the real me when you went looking is because I have been living under fake IDs all of my life.” Isabella cradled her tea mug in both hands. “My mother did not go to a hospital to have me.”
“So, no Social Security number? No birth certificate?”
“I’ve had a dozen Social Security numbers during my life, as well as a variety of birth certificates, credit cards and passports. My grandmother manufactured a fake ID for me before I was even born and she gives me a new one whenever I move or change jobs.” Isabella glanced at the wall where her backpack hung on an iron hook. “I’ve got two brand-new, unused sets in my pack right now.”
“Where were you born?’ he demanded, fascinated. “How did you manage to stay out of the system?”
“My parents were living with my grandmother on a remote island in the South Pacific when I was born. My father wrote thrillers under an assumed name, all based on conspiracies he had uncovered. My mother was an artist. Her work hangs in some very respected museums. All the paintings are under a fake name. I was born at home, and the birth was never registered with any official government agency. I was homeschooled from the start. Every name I’ve ever used except Isabella Valdez has been manufactured.”
He whistled softly. “I’ll be damned. And people think I have a problem when it comes to the paranoia thing. Isabella Valdez is your real name?”
“Yes.” She straightened her shoulders. “I decided to start using it the night I hitchhiked to Scargill Cove.”
“What about the bio I found online?”
“Oh, that’s a complete fake, of course. First time it’s ever been used. Grandma told me to