Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO SEARCHED FOR HER
Captain Daniel Mercer arrived at the Castillo mansion at 2:17 in the morning.
He came in an unmarked police vehicle with two detectives behind him.
He did not know that Elena had identified him.
That was Detective Sloan's decision.
She wanted to see his face before he had time to prepare.
Alejandro waited in the entrance hall.
Elena had been moved to a quiet ground-floor guest room under the care of Dr. Reyes, an independent physician brought in by Mateo.
Vivian sat in the formal dining room with an officer outside each door.
No one had been arrested yet.
Mara wanted evidence before confrontation.
Alejandro wanted handcuffs immediately.
He compromised because Elena asked him to.
"If you move too fast," she had whispered, "they will say I'm confused."
Those words haunted him.
The people who had harmed her had trained her to anticipate disbelief.
Daniel Mercer walked in through the front doors carrying the same calm authority Alejandro remembered from three years earlier.
He was fifty-seven now, broad-shouldered, silver at the temples, and famous inside the department for a thirty-year career without a major scandal.
He removed his wet coat.
"Alejandro."
His voice held practiced concern.
"Mara told me you found Elena."
Alejandro looked at him and remembered another night in the same room.
Daniel had stood beside him while search dogs moved through the gardens.
He had placed a hand on Alejandro's shoulder and promised they would not stop.
Now Alejandro knew that the same man had walked underground while Elena was locked beneath their feet.
"We found more than Elena."
Daniel's eyes shifted almost imperceptibly toward the wall where the hidden portrait panel now stood open.
Alejandro saw it.
So did Mara.
Daniel recovered quickly.
"What happened to the wall?"
Mara stepped forward.
"We discovered a concealed lower level."
Daniel's expression changed by less than a fraction.
"Concealed?"
"Yes."
"That's strange."
Alejandro almost laughed.
Instead, he watched the man's hands.
Daniel's right thumb rubbed once over the edge of his wedding ring.
It was a nervous habit.
Alejandro remembered seeing him do it during difficult interviews three years ago.
Mara continued.
"There appears to have been an unlawful confinement area beneath the east wing."
Daniel looked at Alejandro.
"I'm sorry."
"If we missed something during the original search, I'll answer for it."
Alejandro stepped closer.
"Did you?"
Daniel held his gaze.
"Did I what?"
"Miss it."
Silence stretched between them.
Daniel looked back at Mara.
"Is this an interview?"
"Not yet."
"Then I would like to see Elena."
Alejandro blocked his path.
"No."
Daniel's voice hardened slightly.
"She may be an important witness."
"You will not go near my wife."
Mara stepped between them before the confrontation escalated.
"Daniel, I need your original case files."
"All of them."
"Including your personal notes."
Daniel gave her a long look.
"Why?"
Mara did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Daniel's mouth tightened.
"You think I did something wrong."
Alejandro felt something sharp in his chest.
A guilty man often tried to define an accusation before hearing it.
Mara's tone stayed flat.
"I think we found evidence that contradicts the original search report."
"I need the files."
Daniel looked toward the hidden staircase again.
Then he nodded.
"Fine."
"You can have them in the morning."
He reached for his coat.
Mara spoke.
"Leave your phone."
Daniel stopped.
The room changed.
His expression finally cracked.
"Excuse me?"
"Leave your phone."
"Voluntarily."
"Or I will request a warrant before sunrise."
Daniel stared at her.
Alejandro watched three decades of confidence calculate risk in real time.
Finally, Daniel placed the phone on the console table.
"This is insulting."
Mara bagged it.
"Then the search will clear you quickly."
Daniel turned toward Alejandro.
"Be careful who you trust tonight."
Alejandro's voice was cold.
"I learned that lesson three years late."
Daniel left.
Mara waited until the front doors closed.
Then she exhaled.
"He looked at the hidden panel before I mentioned where the lower level was."
Alejandro nodded.
"I saw it."
Mateo entered from the library carrying a laptop in an evidence sleeve.
"Sir."
"We recovered one of the hard drives."
Mara looked at him sharply.
"Recovered?"
"The fire damaged the enclosure, but the drive itself appears intact."
"Our forensic consultant is cloning it now."
Alejandro looked toward the guest room where Elena rested.
"How long?"
"A few hours for a basic index."
Dr. Reyes appeared in the doorway.
"Mr. Castillo."
Alejandro crossed to him immediately.
"How is she?"
The doctor's expression was careful.
"Physically, she is dehydrated, underweight, and showing signs of prolonged stress."
"Some bruising is recent."
"Some injuries are older."
Alejandro closed his eyes.
"Can I see her?"
"She asked for you."
That surprised him.
He entered the room alone.
Elena sat near the window wrapped in a blanket.
A tray of untouched food rested beside her.
She watched the rain.
Alejandro stopped several feet away.
"You asked for me?"
She nodded.
"Sit."
He sat in the chair across from her.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Elena looked at him.
"Vivian told me you remarried."
Alejandro's face tightened.
"I didn't."
"She showed me photographs."
"Of you and her."
"At dinners."
"On planes."
"At the foundation gala."
Alejandro understood.
Vivian had spent years entering public events on his arm because the board considered her a trusted family friend.
Photographs had often framed them together.
"I never married her."
Elena looked down.
"She said you stopped looking after six months."
"I never stopped."
"She said the international searches were publicity."
"They weren't."
"She said my parents believed I abandoned them."
Alejandro's chest tightened.
"Your parents never believed that."
Elena looked at him again.
"Are they alive?"
The question broke something inside him.
"Yes."
"Both of them."
She covered her mouth.
A sound came out that was half laugh and half sob.
Alejandro wanted to cross the room.
He did not.
Elena wiped her face.
"She told me my father died."
Alejandro looked toward the closed door.
"Why?"
Elena stared at the blanket over her knees.
"Because I refused to sign something."
His attention sharpened.
"What did she want you to sign?"
Elena's face changed.
"A transfer."
"Of what?"
"My shares in Castillo Holdings."
Alejandro went still.
Elena had inherited an eleven-percent voting interest through their marriage trust.
Those shares were dormant only because she had been legally missing, not dead.
Eleven percent was enough to block several major transactions.
It was enough to decide board control if combined with the right minority bloc.
Alejandro leaned forward.
"Did you sign?"
Elena shook her head.
"Not the first time."
He heard the wording.
"And later?"
Her eyes filled with shame.
"Later, I signed whatever they put in front of me."
Alejandro spoke immediately.
"You were forced."
"I still signed."
"You were forced."
She looked at him.
"Alejandro, there's something else."
He waited.
"The man who brought the papers wasn't always Daniel."
A cold sensation spread through him.
"Who else came?"
Elena took a breath.
"Your brother."
Alejandro did not move.
His younger brother, Rafael Castillo, had died eighteen months earlier in a private plane crash off the coast of Portugal.
Alejandro had identified his body.
He had buried him.
Elena watched his face and whispered the words that turned grief into terror.
"Alejandro did not respond immediately.
His mind went to the cemetery.
Rafael's grave stood beneath an old cedar tree on the Castillo family plot.
Alejandro had chosen the stone himself.
He had approved the inscription.
BELOVED SON AND BROTHER.
For eighteen months, he had visited that grave on Rafael's birthday and on the anniversary of the crash.
He had spoken aloud once, embarrassed by the habit but unable to stop.
He told Rafael he was sorry they fought so much during the last year.
He told him he wished Elena had been there to make peace between them.
Now those memories felt invaded.
Elena watched his face.
"I know what you're thinking."
Alejandro looked at her.
"Do you?"
"You're trying to decide whether believing me means losing him twice."
The accuracy hurt.
Alejandro sat down.
"I buried my brother."
"I know."
"I saw the coffin."
"Did you see him?"
Alejandro opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
No.
The remains had been sealed.
The Portuguese authorities strongly advised against viewing because of crash damage.
Rafael's identity had been confirmed through dental records, personal effects, and DNA supposedly matched to an old medical sample.
Alejandro had trusted procedure.
After three years of failed searches for Elena, he had not possessed the emotional strength to challenge another official conclusion.
"No," he said.
Elena nodded.
"Then don't decide yet."
"Just check."
That sentence reminded Alejandro who Elena had been before captivity.
She rarely accepted dramatic conclusions without evidence.
When tabloids once accused one of his executives of stealing from the company, Alejandro wanted the man fired immediately.
Elena made him wait for an audit.
The accusation turned out to be false.
"You used to say panic loves certainty," Alejandro murmured.
Elena's expression softened.
"I still say it."
For a moment, they looked at each other as husband and wife rather than rescuer and rescued.
Then Elena's face clouded.
"Rafael didn't look well last week."
"What do you mean?"
"He was thinner."
"He kept looking over his shoulder."
"He and Vivian argued after he thought I was asleep."
Alejandro leaned forward.
"About what?"
"He wanted to move me."
"She said Isabella wasn't ready."
The name meant nothing to Alejandro in that moment beyond Vivian's late mother.
He assumed Elena's memory had mixed people.
He did not correct her.
That restraint would matter later.
"Anything else?"
Elena nodded.
"Rafael said, 'I already died once for this.'"
Alejandro felt the room go cold.
Not survived.
Not almost died.
Died once.
The wording sounded deliberate.
Elena reached for the glass of water beside her.
Her hand shook.
Alejandro did not grab it for her.
He moved the coaster closer so the glass would be easier to reach.
Elena noticed.
She picked it up herself.
Small choices.
Small spaces.
A life being returned one decision at a time.
Then she told him Rafael had been downstairs only days earlier.
May you like
Rafael came downstairs last week."
