Chapter 8 - WHAT ALEJANDRO KNEW
Catalina denied ordering surveillance.
The investigators did not believe her.
Neither did I.
But Alejandro’s reaction bothered me.
He was angry.
He was shocked.
Yet not shocked enough.
That evening, after my mother went to sleep, I found him in his study staring at the old photograph from the soup kitchen.
“Tell me,” I said.
He did not look up.
“Tell you what?”
“What you’re still hiding.”
His jaw tightened.
“Mariana.”
“I know your face.”
He leaned back.
“I received an email six months ago.”
My chest went cold.
“What email?”
“Anonymous.”
“What did it say?”
He opened his laptop.
The message contained one sentence.
Your wife’s mother is not dead. Ask who Catalina paid to keep watch.
I stared at him.
“Six months.”
“I thought it was blackmail.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“Did you investigate?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Immediately.”
My anger rose.
“How long have you known about Victor?”
“Four months.”
“How long have you known my mother might be alive?”
“Three weeks.”
I stepped backward.
Three weeks.
Not one day.
Not yesterday.
Three weeks.
“You lied.”
“I suspected.”
“You lied.”
“I didn’t know where she was.”
“But you knew there was a chance.”
“Yes.”
“Three weeks.”
“I needed evidence.”
“You decided for me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
I laughed.
“There it is again.”
He stood.
“Mariana.”
“No.”
I held up my hand.
“My father protected me by taking money and running away.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Your mother protected you by covering up crimes.”
“I’m not my mother.”
“And you protected me by keeping my own mother’s possible survival secret.”
He stopped.
I saw the answer hit him.
“You’re right,” he said.
“I don’t want to be right.”
“I was wrong.”
I stared at him.
“I need space.”
“Mariana.”
“Not forever.”
He nodded slowly.
“I’ll sleep downstairs.”
The following morning, my mother found me drinking coffee alone.
“You’re angry with him.”
“Yes.”
“He brought me here.”
“He also knew more than he told me.”
She sat beside me.
“I remember being married.”
I looked at her.
“To Dad?”
“Yes.”
“What do you remember?”
“Arguments.”
She touched the table.
“He hated feeling powerless.”
“That sounds like him.”
“I hurt him.”
Her voice carried shame.
“I loved Rafael.”
“You don’t have to explain that to me.”
“I do.”
She looked into my eyes.
“People can be victims in one part of a story and still make mistakes in another.”
I was silent.
“That includes me.”
She squeezed my hand.
“And you.”
My throat tightened.
“You remember what I said when you came into this house?”
“Yes.”
I blinked.
“You remember?”
“Not every word.”
Her mouth curved sadly.
“But I remember your face.”
Shame rushed through me.
“I treated you like garbage.”
“You thought I was a stranger.”
“That makes it worse.”
“No.”
“It does.”
She shook her head.
“It means you have something to learn.”
I stared at her.
She smiled faintly.
“That sounds like something a mother would say.”
I laughed through tears.
“Yes.”
That afternoon, federal investigators questioned Catalina for seven hours.
She was released without charges pending further investigation.
Her attorney held a press conference on the courthouse steps.
Catalina claimed Elena Vargas and Hector Vargas were exploiting “a vulnerable family tragedy” to extort money from Salazar Construction.
By evening, my face was on television.
So was my mother’s.
Headlines appeared online.
MILLIONAIRE FAMILY ROCKED BY HOMELESS WOMAN’S CLAIM
SALAZAR HEIR’S WIFE SAYS HOMELESS WOMAN IS MISSING MOTHER
TWENTY-YEAR CONSTRUCTION SCANDAL REOPENED
Reporters gathered outside our gates.
Old photographs of my mother were compared with new photographs of her.
Commentators debated her mental health.
Strangers called her a liar.
One network displayed images of her sleeping near a bus station.
I turned off the television.
My mother had seen enough humiliation.
Then Salazar Construction’s board called an emergency meeting.
Several directors wanted Alejandro to distance himself publicly from the investigation.
He refused.
At six that evening, he stood before twelve wealthy men and women in a glass conference room.
I watched remotely from home.
“If my father’s company benefited from fraud,” Alejandro said, “we will disclose it.”
One director interrupted.
“You could destroy billions in shareholder value.”
Alejandro remained calm.
“If the value depends on hiding crimes, it deserves to be destroyed.”
Another director warned him.
“Your mother still controls eleven percent.”
“My mother doesn’t control me.”
The vote to remove Alejandro as chief executive failed by one seat.
When he returned home, he did not come upstairs.
I found him sitting alone in the kitchen.
I placed coffee in front of him.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I’m still angry.”
“I know.”
“But you did the right thing today.”
He nodded.
“I should have done it six months ago.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“I’m not saying it to make you forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I just wanted you to know.”
I sat across from him.
Before I could answer, Marcus rushed into the kitchen.
“We found the anonymous sender.”
Alejandro stood.
“Who?”
“A former Salazar accountant named Samuel Greene.”
“Alive?”
“Barely.”
Samuel was seventy-nine and dying in hospice care outside Chicago.
We drove there immediately.
He looked skeletal beneath white sheets.
But his mind was sharp.
When he saw Alejandro, he smiled sadly.
“Rafael’s boy.”
Alejandro sat beside him.
“You sent the email?”
“Yes.”
“Why wait twenty years?”
“Fear.”
Samuel coughed.
“Then guilt.”
He looked at me.
“I saw your mother last year.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Outside Union Station.”
“You recognized her?”
“Not immediately. Then I saw the mark.”
“The crescent?”
He nodded.
“I followed her.”
“Why didn’t you help her?”
“Victor was watching.”
I grabbed the edge of the bed.
“When?”
“Last November.”
Alejandro leaned forward.
“Victor knew Elena was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he kill her?”
Samuel looked frightened even now.
“Because she couldn’t remember.”
The answer chilled me.
“As long as Elena stayed homeless, nameless and confused, she wasn’t a threat.”
Samuel reached beneath his blanket.
He handed Alejandro a flash drive.
“I copied this before I retired.”
“What is it?”
“Victor’s reports.”
“Surveillance?”
“Yes.”
Samuel looked at me.
“On you. On Elena. On Hector.”
“Why me?”
“Insurance.”
“Against what?”
“Your mother remembering.”
My hands shook.
Samuel coughed again.
Then he looked directly at Alejandro.
“There’s a final report.”
“What does it say?”
“Three weeks ago, Victor wrote that Elena had begun saying Mariana’s name in her sleep.”
The room became silent.
“He knew her memory was returning.”
Samuel nodded.
“What was he ordered to do?”
Samuel looked toward the door.
Then whispered:
“Move her permanently.”
My stomach turned.
“That means kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who gave the order?”
Samuel shook his head.
“The report uses initials.”
“What initials?”
He looked at Alejandro.
“C.S.”
Catalina Salazar.
My husband closed his eyes.
Then Samuel grabbed his wrist.
“But don’t assume.”
Alejandro frowned.
“What?”
“Those initials were added later.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know.”
Samuel’s breathing became strained.
He whispered his final warning.
“Someone has been trying to make Catalina look like the only villain for twenty years.”
“Who?”
Samuel looked at me.
“Find Raymond Pike’s son.”
Then the monitor beside him began to alarm.
Nurses rushed into the room.
We were pushed into the hallway.
Twenty minutes later, Samuel Greene was dead.
Marcus opened the flash drive that night.
Among hundreds of surveillance reports was a photograph taken only eleven days earlier.
My mother sat on a bench near Union Station.
A man stood twenty feet behind her.
The file identified him as Daniel Pike.
Raymond Pike’s only son.
And Daniel was not a stranger.
I knew him.
He was Salazar Construction’s chief legal officer.
May you like
One of Alejandro’s closest advisers.
The man who had spent the last fifteen years eating Thanksgiving dinner at our table.
