Chapter 6 - THE AUNT WHO DISAPPEARED
Alejandro did not believe Hector.
Not at first.
“My mother had one brother,” he said. “Daniel. He died as a child.”
Hector shook his head.
We had stopped him from boarding the plane and brought him back to Jennifer’s office.
“Victor isn’t Catalina’s brother.”
“Then how is he my uncle?”
“Rafael’s.”
Alejandro froze.
“My father had no siblings.”
“Publicly.”
Hector looked exhausted.
“Victor Hale was born Victor Salazar.”
Marcus confirmed it within an hour.
Rafael’s father had had a son years before marrying Rafael’s mother.
Victor’s birth certificate listed no father, but an old probate filing connected him to the Salazar family through a confidential settlement.
Rafael had known.
Catalina had known.
Alejandro had not.
“Why change his name?” I asked.
Hector shrugged.
“Scandal. Family reputation. I don’t know.”
Alejandro stood by the window.
“So my mother hired my father’s half brother.”
“Yes.”
“To follow the woman my father loved.”
Hector lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
“And after my father died, Victor kept getting paid.”
“Yes.”
Alejandro turned.
“Why didn’t you tell me twenty years ago?”
Hector’s laugh was bitter.
“You were seventeen. Catalina controlled everything around you. Your lawyers. Your trust. Your home. Your security.”
He pointed toward himself.
“I was a warehouse foreman with a sixteen-year-old daughter. I was terrified.”
Alejandro said nothing.
That night we drove to Wisconsin.
Marcus traveled ahead with two security officers.
We did not tell Teresa we were coming until we were fifteen minutes away.
When I called, a woman answered.
“Hello?”
“Is this Teresa Lang?”
“Who’s asking?”
“My name is Mariana Salazar.”
Silence.
Then the woman whispered, “Mariana Vargas?”
My heart hammered.
“Yes.”
She hung up.
I called again.
No answer.
Marcus’s SUV pulled ahead.
Five minutes later, he called Alejandro.
“She’s packing.”
“What?”
“She’s putting luggage in her car.”
“Stop her from leaving.”
“We can’t detain her.”
“Then talk to her.”
By the time we reached the small white farmhouse, Teresa stood on the porch holding a baseball bat.
She looked terrified.
“Stay in the car,” Alejandro told me.
“No.”
“Mariana.”
“She’s my aunt.”
I stepped out.
Teresa gripped the bat.
“Go away.”
“Aunt Teresa?”
Her face crumpled.
I had not intended to call her that.
It simply came out.
She stared at me.
“You look like Elena.”
My mother emerged from the SUV behind me.
Teresa dropped the bat.
It struck the wooden porch.
“Elena?”
My mother began crying.
Teresa ran.
At first I thought she was running away.
Instead she flew down the porch steps and wrapped her arms around my mother.
The sound she made was almost animal.
She sobbed into Elena’s hair.
“I thought they killed you.”
My mother clung to her.
“I don’t remember you.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
Teresa pulled back.
“Hector told me.”
My father stood near the SUV.
His sister looked at him.
“You coward.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
She stared at him for several seconds.
Then slapped him.
Hard.
Hector accepted it without moving.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserved twenty years of it.”
Inside, Teresa made coffee nobody drank.
She had hidden for nearly two decades.
No social media.
No credit cards in her former name.
No contact with family.
“Victor came to my apartment four months after Elena disappeared,” she explained. “He wanted the duplicate documents.”
“Did you have them?” Alejandro asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Teresa stared at him.
“You’re Rafael’s boy.”
Alejandro nodded.
Her expression softened.
“He loved you.”
Alejandro swallowed.
“So I’ve been told.”
Teresa opened a kitchen drawer.
From beneath a stack of dish towels, she removed an old photograph.
Rafael stood beside a teenage Alejandro.
“He gave me that three weeks before he died.”
Alejandro stared at it.
“Why?”
“He told me if something happened to him, I needed to remember what he was trying to protect.”
“What was he protecting?”
“You.”
Alejandro’s face changed.
Teresa continued.
“Rafael believed Catalina had become involved with Raymond Pike’s fraud. At first he thought she was just hiding money. Then they discovered public buildings were being built with materials that did not meet code.”
My stomach tightened.
“People could have died.”
“People did.”
Teresa nodded.
“A balcony collapse. A retaining wall. Two workers killed when faulty scaffolding failed.”
Alejandro sat down.
His entire empire had been built on a company whose history now looked poisoned.
“My father knew?”
“He discovered it late.”
“And my mother?”
“She knew earlier.”
The room went silent.
“Where are the documents?” Alejandro asked.
Teresa looked toward the window.
“I moved them.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere Victor would never think to search.”
She stood.
“Come with me.”
We followed her to a detached garage.
Inside sat an ancient blue pickup truck.
Teresa opened the hood.
Then she removed the air-filter housing.
Beneath it was a sealed metal container.
She handed it to Alejandro.
“Your father deserved better.”
Inside were photocopies of invoices, photographs, bank transfers and handwritten notes.
There was also a cassette tape.
Marcus found an old player in Teresa’s house.
A man’s voice filled the kitchen.
Victor Hale.
“I don’t care what Rafael wants.”
Another voice answered.
Catalina.
My mother grabbed my hand.
The tape continued.
Catalina said, “You were hired to retrieve documents, not hurt anyone.”
Victor laughed.
“Tell that to Raymond. He wants Elena gone.”
Catalina answered, “Elena is not to be killed.”
I stared at Alejandro.
His mother had known.
The recording crackled.
Victor said, “And Rafael?”
Silence.
Then Catalina answered.
“Rafael made his choice.”
The tape ended.
Nobody spoke.
Teresa rewound it.
“That’s all I recorded. I was in Catalina’s office copying files. They walked into the room next door.”
“Did police ever hear this?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the detective who agreed to meet me died before I could give it to him.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I answered cautiously.
“Hello?”
A man spoke.
His voice was calm.
Old.
“Hello, Mariana.”
My blood turned cold.
“Who is this?”
“You’ve been digging into things your mother worked very hard to forget.”
Alejandro saw my face.
He reached for the phone.
I switched to speaker.
“Victor?” Alejandro said.
The man laughed softly.
“Rafael’s boy.”
Alejandro’s jaw clenched.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.”
Marcus moved instantly toward the window.
Victor continued.
“You found Teresa.”
Teresa went pale.
“How?”
“Twenty years is a long time to wait for people to make mistakes.”
I looked outside.
Nothing.
“Why did you keep my mother alive?” I asked.
Silence.
Then Victor answered.
“I didn’t.”
“What?”
“I left her where Raymond Pike told me to leave her.”
My mother’s breathing stopped.
“At a construction site?”
“Yes.”
“You thought she would die?”
“I was told she already had.”
I gripped the phone.
“Who ordered it?”
Victor laughed.
“You still think Catalina was the monster?”
Alejandro’s expression changed.
“Who gave the order?”
“Ask your mother who Raymond Pike really was.”
The line went dead.
Teresa sank into a chair.
Alejandro looked at me.
I looked at my mother.
Then Hector whispered the answer.
“Raymond Pike was Catalina’s lover.”
Teresa shook her head.
“No.”
Hector looked at Alejandro.
“That isn’t the worst part.”
Alejandro went still.
“What could possibly be worse?”
May you like
My father swallowed.
“Raymond believed you were his son.”
