Chapter 7 - THE SECOND CELL
Elena went silent when Alejandro repeated Dr. Vale's words.
Not confused.
Not surprised.
Silent.
Alejandro immediately understood that Vale had told the truth about one thing.
There had been someone else underground.
Detective Sloan asked him to leave the room before questioning Elena.
Elena stopped her.
"He can stay."
Alejandro sat several feet away.
Mara took the chair near the foot of the bed.
"Elena, was another person confined beneath the mansion?"
Elena nodded.
"For part of the time."
"Who?"
Elena pressed her lips together.
"I never knew her name at first."
"I could hear her through the wall."
"She cried at night."
"Sometimes she sang."
"Vivian hated the singing."
Alejandro felt cold.
"How long was she there?"
"Seven months."
Mara asked the next question gently.
"What happened to her?"
Elena stared at the window.
"One morning, she was gone."
"There was blood in the corridor."
Alejandro thought of the Santa Fe car.
Mara clearly did too.
"Did you ever see her face?"
"Twice."
"Can you describe her?"
Elena nodded.
"Mid-thirties."
"Brown hair."
"A small tattoo on her left wrist."
"Three stars."
Mara wrote it down.
Elena continued.
"Her name might have been Lucia."
Alejandro looked at her.
"Why do you think that?"
"Vale called her that once."
Mara's face changed.
She stood and stepped into the hallway to make a call.
When she returned ten minutes later, she carried a photograph on her phone.
"Elena, I need you to look at this only if you feel able."
Elena nodded.
Mara showed her an old driver's-license photograph.
Elena stared at it.
Her hand began to shake.
"That's her."
Mara lowered the phone.
"Her name was Lucia Herrera."
"She disappeared three years ago from Albuquerque."
Alejandro remembered the timing.
Lucia vanished six months after Elena.
Her case had never received national attention.
"Why was she here?"
Mara answered carefully.
"She worked for Castillo Holdings."
Alejandro stood.
"Where?"
"Internal audit."
His blood went cold.
Lucia Herrera had audited corporate accounts.
If she had discovered something involving Rafael or Vivian, her disappearance might have been connected to the same motive.
Mateo entered carrying a folder.
"We checked personnel records."
"Herrera flagged irregular payments eighteen days before she disappeared."
"What payments?"
"Transfers from several Castillo subsidiaries into shell companies."
"The approvals were routed through Rafael's office."
Alejandro stared at the pages.
The amounts totaled more than sixty million dollars.
"Why didn't I know?"
Mateo looked uncomfortable.
"The report was closed internally."
"By whom?"
Mateo handed him the page.
The closure authorization carried Alejandro's digital signature.
Alejandro read it twice.
"I never approved this."
Mara took the document.
"Then someone had access to your signing credentials."
Elena spoke softly.
"Vivian did."
Alejandro turned.
"How do you know?"
"Because she used them in front of me."
"She brought a tablet downstairs."
"She said you trusted her so completely that you had given her the power to become you."
Alejandro remembered years of delegated access.
Assistants had handled his calendars.
Legal officers routed documents through electronic signing systems.
Vivian had coordinated family-office paperwork.
In the chaos after Elena disappeared, Alejandro had treated security as an inconvenience.
He had been focused on finding his wife.
Rafael and Vivian had used that focus as cover.
Mara opened another file.
"There's more."
"Lucia's husband died two weeks after she disappeared."
"Officially a suicide."
Alejandro looked at her.
"Do you believe that?"
"I believe we need to reopen everything."
Downstairs, Dr. Vale had stopped cooperating.
He demanded a lawyer and claimed he had only provided legitimate medical services.
But the encrypted drive in his backpack produced something useful before his attorney arrived.
A technician found a file index that had not been wiped.
One directory was labeled SUBJECT E.
Another was labeled SUBJECT L.
A third was labeled A.C.
Alejandro stared at the initials.
"That's me."
Mateo nodded.
"We think so."
"What's inside?"
"The files are encrypted."
"But the directory contains timestamps going back four years."
Four years.
One year before Elena vanished.
The conspiracy had begun earlier than anyone thought.
Mara received a call from the forensic team upstairs.
They had recovered security footage from an old backup recorder in the burned command room.
The footage had no audio.
Most files were corrupted.
One clip remained intact.
It was dated the night Elena disappeared.
They gathered in the library around a monitor.
The video showed the mansion's rear service entrance at 11:42 p.m.
Elena appeared on camera wearing the blue dress Alejandro remembered from that night.
She was walking toward the door.
Then Rafael stepped into frame.
He said something.
Elena turned.
Vivian appeared behind her.
The two women argued.
Rafael raised his hands as if trying to calm them.
Then Dr. Vale entered from outside carrying a medical bag.
Alejandro gripped the desk.
The next seconds were difficult to watch.
Vale pressed something against Elena's arm.
She struggled.
Rafael caught her before she fell.
Vivian opened the basement service door.
Together they carried Elena out of frame.
The recording continued for another minute.
At 11:47 p.m., Captain Daniel Mercer walked through the same door.
He looked directly at the camera.
Then the screen went black.
Mara whispered a curse.
Alejandro felt his entire past rearrange itself.
The man who had led the search had been present during the abduction.
Elena closed her eyes.
"I remember the needle."
Alejandro turned toward her.
She looked at him.
"But that's not the worst part."
"What is?"
Elena's voice dropped to a whisper.
"The recovered footage also forced Elena to recover parts of the night in sequence.
Dr. Reyes warned everyone not to push memory.
Trauma could create fragments, and pressure could contaminate recall.
So Mara asked only open questions.
"What do you remember before the video begins?"
Elena closed her eyes.
"Music."
Alejandro frowned.
"Music?"
"The piano in the west room."
"Vivian was playing."
Alejandro remembered.
Vivian often played when visiting the mansion.
That night, Alejandro had left for the airport before dinner.
Elena had planned to review foundation documents with a lawyer the next morning.
"I went downstairs because she stopped in the middle of a song."
Elena continued.
"I heard Rafael arguing with her near the service hall."
"He said the weather might send your plane back."
Alejandro looked at Mara.
His original flight had in fact been delayed for storms before eventually departing.
If the delay had worsened, he might have returned to the mansion that night.
"What were they arguing about?"
Elena pressed two fingers to her temple.
"Rafael said they had one chance."
"Vivian said you would never open the Reserve willingly."
"He said you didn't need to be willing if you weren't awake."
Alejandro felt nausea.
Mara kept her voice neutral.
"Did they say why they needed access?"
"Voting papers."
"Something about father's amendment."
"I stepped closer because I thought they were planning to steal from you."
Elena opened her eyes.
"Then the floor creaked."
That tiny sound had changed three years of their lives.
Vivian saw Elena.
Rafael swore.
Elena tried to back away.
Then Vale appeared through the service entrance earlier than expected.
"I ran toward the front hall."
"Vivian grabbed my hair."
Alejandro's hands closed.
Elena noticed and paused.
He deliberately opened them again.
"Keep going only if you want to."
She nodded.
"Rafael told Vivian not to hurt me."
"For one second, I thought he was helping."
"Then he blocked the doorway."
The betrayal inside that detail was worse than violence.
Rafael had used the appearance of restraint while still preventing escape.
"Vale injected me."
"The last thing I remember is the chandelier."
Elena looked toward the entrance hall as though she could see it through the walls.
"I woke up downstairs without my ring."
Alejandro's throat tightened.
Mara made a note.
"So the plan changed because you overheard them."
Elena nodded.
"They were going to take Alejandro."
The sentence shifted the entire motive.
May you like
I wasn't the person they were planning to take that night."
