Chapter 13 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
The recording began with Rafael begging Elena to leave Spain.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
“You need to take Isabella and go.”
His voice sounded younger.
Terrified.
Elena answered:
“I’m not running from thieves.”
Rafael said:
“This stopped being about money.”
“What is it about?”
“Arturo thinks you can destroy him.”
“He’s right.”
“Elena.”
“I already sent copies.”
“To whom?”
A pause.
Then Elena replied:
“People you don’t know.”
Rafael lowered his voice.
“If he thinks you have evidence, he’ll do more than frighten you.”
Silence.
Then Elena asked:
“Did he tell you that?”
Rafael did not answer.
She asked again.
“Rafael.”
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
Elena continued:
“And you still expect me to trust you?”
“I’m trying to save your life.”
“You’re trying to save your career.”
Both could have been true.
The recording ended with Elena saying:
“If I leave now, Gabriel and Isabella spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.”
“I’m ending this.”
Three days later, she was dead.
Carmen used the recording carefully.
Not as proof of murder.
As proof that Rafael knew Elena was being threatened and had a reason to protect himself from exposure.
His new affidavit was no longer neutral.
It came from a compromised witness.
The court hearing became a battle over credibility.
Beatriz sat quietly.
Rafael did not appear.
His attorney said he was ill.
I knew better.
He was hiding.
Carmen dismantled the claim that I intimidated him by showing Mateo’s full recording from the office.
Yes, I grabbed Rafael’s shirt.
For less than three seconds.
Then released him.
Not ideal.
Not defensible as good judgment.
But it happened after I learned he buried evidence concerning Elena’s death.
The judge warned me.
I accepted it.
Then Carmen introduced Rafael’s conflicting statements.
His cooperation.
The drive.
His admission of accepting money.
Suddenly, his affidavit looked exactly like what it was.
A frightened man changing sides again.
The request to remove Isabella was denied.
But the judge imposed conditions.
Daily contact with the child advocate.
No international travel.
No unilateral school change.
All reasonable.
Then came the deadline.
The court scheduled a full temporary custody determination in forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours.
Beatriz needed only enough doubt.
I needed enough truth.
After the hearing, Mateo called.
“We found José.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“Outside Seville.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Does Arturo know?”
“Probably not yet.”
“Get him protected.”
“Already moving.”
José Llorente was fifty-eight.
Former mechanic.
He lived alone above a tire shop.
When investigators approached, he initially denied everything.
Then they showed him Elena’s photograph.
He broke.
Not dramatically.
His shoulders simply collapsed.
He asked for a lawyer.
Then immunity consideration.
Prosecutors negotiated.
By evening, he talked.
Arturo had paid him.
First time, loosen the brake line enough that Elena would notice.
A warning.
The second time?
José went silent.
“What second time?”
the investigator asked.
He looked at the table.
“Someone came back.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“Name?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Describe her.”
Dark hair.
Early thirties at the time.
Elegant.
Spanish accent.
Expensive perfume.
She carried cash.
She told him Arturo wanted the work finished.
“What work?”
José stared downward.
“She wanted the line weakened again.”
My blood turned cold.
“Did you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Elena would drive?”
“Yes.”
“Did you intend a fatal crash?”
“No.”
“It was supposed to fail slowly.”
“Give her another scare.”
His excuses made me sick.
Then police showed photographs.
Marta.
Beatriz.
Other women.
José pointed at one.
Beatriz.
No hesitation.
My wife.
The woman who slept beside me for years.
The woman who kissed Isabella goodnight while hiding the fact that she had helped sabotage her mother’s car.
But José said something else.
“Someone paid the rest afterward.”
“Who?”
“A lawyer.”
“Rafael?”
José shook his head.
“No.”
My heart stopped.
“Not Rafael?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
He described a younger man.
Dark hair.
Thin.
Glasses.
He didn’t know the name.
Mateo sent photographs of Serrano legal staff from four years ago.
José chose one.
Eduardo Silva.
The operations director who had disappeared from Dubai.
Eduardo had been part of the network years before I even knew his name.
That discovery changed the timeline again.
This wasn’t something Arturo assembled after Elena’s death.
It was an organization.
People inserted slowly into my life.
By midnight, police had alerts for Eduardo across Europe.
Arturo’s accounts were being monitored.
Beatriz remained under investigation.
And I had forty-eight hours until the custody hearing.
At one in the morning, Isabella woke from a nightmare.
I heard her calling.
I ran upstairs.
She was sitting upright.
Breathing quickly.
“I thought the door was locked.”
I sat beside her.
“It’s open.”
She looked toward it.
I got up.
Opened the door wider.
Then removed the small portable latch entirely.
I placed it on the dresser.
“No locked doors.”
She nodded.
I returned to the bed.
After several minutes, she whispered, “Did Mom know Beatriz?”
I froze.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because Beatriz said Mom was difficult.”
“When?”
“A lot.”
My chest tightened.
“What else did she say?”
“That Mom didn’t understand how the world worked.”
“That she made people angry.”
I swallowed.
“Anything else?”
Isabella stared at the blanket.
“She said Mom should have minded her own business.”
I felt cold.
Then Isabella added:
“One night Mr. Vega said Beatriz should stop talking about the car around me.”
My pulse jumped.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He said the car wasn’t the mistake.”
“What was?”
She looked at me.
“Leaving Mom’s phone at the scene.”
I stopped breathing.
Elena’s phone.
Police recovered it from the car.
At least that was what the report said.
But if Arturo called it a mistake, there had to be something on that phone.
Something nobody had found.
Or something someone had removed.
I called Mateo.
He answered on the first ring.
“Elena’s phone.”
“What about it?”
“Find out where it is.”
“It should be in archived police evidence.”
“Should be?”
“I’ll check.”
Twenty minutes later, he called back.
The phone was not in evidence.
It had been released three weeks after the crash.
“To whom?”
I asked.
Mateo went silent.
“Who?”
“Rafael Montes.”
I closed my eyes.
Forty-eight hours until the custody hearing.
A missing phone.
A missing lawyer.
And somewhere on that device might be the one piece of evidence Elena died trying to preserve.
Then my new secure phone received a message.
No sender.
A photograph.
Elena’s old phone sitting on a table.
Beside it was today’s newspaper.
The message below said:
YOU WANT THE PHONE?
May you like
BRING THE BLUE FILE.
ALONE.
