Putting the Band Back Together
Chapter 13
Heartbroken, Reddington started off with the same question he had asked Dembe."Why?"
Why had this young woman who he had known her whole life, who he had always treated as family, tried to kill him?
Isabella answered with a question of her own. "How long was Kate with you?"
Reddington swallowed and cleared his throat. Realizing where this was going, he nodded. "For more than thirty-five years."
"Longer than I've been alive. Longer than you've known my father." Izzie pointed out with a sad expression.
Reddington nodded. "Your father …" He had to clear his throat again before he could manage his next question. "... he told you about Kate?"
"He didn't have to." Isabella's reply was both anguished and defiant.
"When Luli died my father was sad. You were sad. But you could talk about her. You said that she had died. Neither of you would say how, but you would talk about her – about the good times.
"Kate drops out of sight, out of contact, and no one sounds an alarm? You don't go looking for her? You don't say anything about her?
"If something happened to her on a job for you, you would have done something for her – a wake, a gravestone. Your silence said it all. You did something to her!"
Having no defense, Raymond said nothing.
"I had to do something to get my father away from you before something happened and you turned on him too!"
Raymond nodded his understanding. "So you decided to kill me."
Isabella didn't look happy with her decision – far from it. "My father loves you. We all do. He would do anything for you. He would never leave you by choice.
"I love my father. I need my father. You put him in constant danger. You put us all in danger. My baby was kidnapped and poisoned because someone wanted to get to you. My father had to trade himself to get her back. He's been shot and beaten more times than I can count because of you! My mother died because of you!"
At that last charge, Reddington was genuinely baffled. "Your mother died in a car accident."
"Did she?" Isabella asked sounding genuinely unsure.
He shook his head. "I had nothing to do with it. Sometimes an accident is just an accident."
"It's so hard to tell sometimes with you." Isabella admitted. "That doesn't change the rest. Kate was family. Like my father, she would never have betrayed you. She would never have sold you out."
"No, she wouldn't." Reddington agreed looking down at his hands ashamed.
"So why is she getting the Newton Phillips treatment – just disappearing with no explanation and no one commenting on it? Why does my father get that haunted look in his eyes every time I mention her name? Where is Kate? What happened to her? What did you do to her?"
Raymond tried to put together words. "I ... Kate … I -"
"- Nothing. I'm right here."
Raymond looked up. His head down, he had missed the door opening.
Turning in her seat, Izzie's eyes widened and her hand went to cover her mouth. She looked as if she had seen a ghost. "Kate?"
Kate had to hand Elle off to him so she could hold a crying, shaking Izzie instead. "Oh my God! What have I done?"
"Why is mommy crying?" Elle asked him. "Do I have to have more tests?"
"No sweetheart." Raymond stroked Elle's hair and assured her. "Mommy is crying because she missed Kate. We all did. But now Kate is back."
tbc
A/N And then there was one.