Chapter 4 - THE CALL BEFORE THE CRASH
Sebastian Kline had been Alejandro's lawyer for fourteen years.
He had negotiated acquisitions, defended lawsuits, protected family trusts, drafted wills, and stood beside Alejandro at Elena's memorial service.
He had also personally hired two of the private investigation firms that searched Europe for Elena.
Now he was missing.
Alejandro felt no surprise anymore.
Only fury.
Detective Brooks pulled phone records from the day Elena disappeared.
The call from Sebastian had lasted four minutes and twelve seconds.
After that call, Elena's phone stopped moving toward downtown.
It changed direction.
Her car traveled north.
Toward the river road where it would later be found abandoned.
"He redirected her," Alejandro said.
Brooks nodded.
"Maybe."
"There is no maybe."
"Evidence needs fewer emotions than husbands do."
Alejandro looked at her.
"Fair."
Claire entered with another file.
"I found something in the foundation records."
Elena's charitable foundation had funded schools, medical programs, and shelters across the state.
Three months before her disappearance, one vendor began receiving unusually large payments.
The vendor was called Northstar Community Outreach.
It had no employees.
No office.
No public programs.
It existed only on paper.
"How much?" Alejandro asked.
"Twenty-eight million over nine months."
"Approved by?"
Claire turned the page.
Sebastian Kline.
Graham Vale.
And one more signature.
Elena Castillo.
Alejandro stared at it.
"She didn't sign that."
"We need a handwriting expert."
"She wouldn't approve twenty-eight million without telling me."
Claire lowered her voice.
"People are going to say you are defending her because she is your wife."
"I am defending her because she was locked in a room while somebody used her name."
"I know."
Claire tapped the papers.
"A jury will need to know too."
Elena agreed to speak with Detective Brooks that afternoon.
Alejandro was not present.
He wanted to be.
Elena asked him not to be.
He obeyed.
That hurt more than he expected.
He spent the hour walking through the mansion with forensic investigators.
Every room looked different now.
The dining room where Vivian hosted charity dinners.
The ballroom where politicians and executives had raised glasses beneath crystal chandeliers.
The garden terrace where Alejandro had once thanked Vivian publicly for helping him through the worst years of his life.
Elena had been somewhere behind those walls.
Cleaning.
Listening.
Being told he had chosen not to see her.
At the service corridor near the kitchen, an investigator called him over.
"Mr. Castillo."
A section of wallpaper had been removed.
Behind it was a narrow metal panel.
The investigator opened it.
Wires ran upward and disappeared into the ceiling.
"Hidden camera network."
Alejandro's pulse quickened.
"Where does it lead?"
"We are tracing it."
"Was it part of the official security system?"
Mateo, standing under police supervision nearby, shook his head.
"No."
Alejandro looked at him.
"You didn't know?"
"Not about this."
"I don't know whether I believe you."
Mateo's face tightened.
"You shouldn't."
The answer surprised him.
Mateo continued.
"I trusted the wrong people."
"That makes two of us."
They followed the wiring to a locked utility closet below the grand staircase.
Inside was a digital recorder.
Thirty-two camera channels.
Some showed hallways.
Some showed kitchens.
Some showed staff quarters.
One showed Elena's old studio.
One showed the red room.
Another showed Alejandro's private office.
He stared at the screen.
"That camera isn't mine."
Mateo looked sick.
"No."
"How long has someone been recording my office?"
The technician checked the storage dates.
"At least thirty-four months."
Alejandro almost laughed.
While he had paid people to search for Elena, Vivian had watched him search.
Every call.
Every investigator.
Every theory.
Maybe every plan.
"Can we recover deleted footage?"
"We can try."
"Try harder."
A security technician removed the drives for forensic imaging.
One device remained mounted behind the rack.
It was not a recorder.
It was a network bridge.
"This system uploaded remotely," the technician said.
"To where?"
"We need time."
Alejandro crouched beside the wiring.
One cable had a printed tag.
M-17.
He looked at Mateo.
"What does that mean?"
Mateo stared at the label.
"Maintenance route seventeen."
"Where does it go?"
Mateo looked toward the floor.
"Under the house."
The Castillo mansion had been built in 1928.
During renovations, Alejandro's father discovered old service tunnels used for heating pipes and deliveries.
Most had been sealed decades ago.
Mateo led police to a basement storage room.
Behind a wine rack was a steel access door.
The lock was new.
Too new.
Alejandro watched officers open it.
A narrow concrete tunnel stretched into darkness.
Fresh electrical wiring ran along one wall.
"How long is it?" Brooks asked.
Mateo shook his head.
"The original plans show eighty yards."
"Where does it end?"
"The old carriage house."
Alejandro stared at him.
The carriage house had been converted into a guest residence ten years earlier.
Vivian had lived there for most of the last three years.
Detective Brooks looked at Alejandro.
"Stay here."
"No."
"That was not a suggestion."
He hated it.
He obeyed.
Police entered first.
Ten minutes later, Brooks returned.
"Come with me."
The tunnel smelled of damp stone and dust.
Halfway through, they passed a metal door opening into a small chamber.
Inside were shelves of cleaning supplies, folded uniforms, canned food, bottled water, and medical kits.
Enough to support someone without moving supplies through the main house.
At the far end, stairs led upward.
They emerged inside Vivian's guest residence.
Not in the kitchen.
Not in the living room.
Inside a hidden room behind her bedroom closet.
The room contained four computer monitors.
A microphone console.
A printer.
A voice-editing workstation.
Alejandro's stomach turned.
"The recordings."
A technician nodded.
"Probably."
On one monitor was a folder labeled A.C. VOICE LIBRARY.
Thousands of audio clips.
Alejandro opened a few.
His own words played back in fragments.
"Keep her."
"Don't call me."
"She is unstable."
"Do not let her leave."
Each phrase came from legitimate recordings.
Business calls.
Speeches.
Interviews.
Cut apart and rearranged.
Vivian had not needed sophisticated imitation.
She had harvested his real voice and weaponized it.
Alejandro stepped away from the desk.
He felt contaminated.
Detective Brooks opened another folder.
It contained scans of his signature.
Dozens of versions.
The perfect angle.
The perfect pressure.
The perfect curve.
"This explains the documents," Claire said.
A forensic technician searched the machine.
"There are print templates for medical orders, trust transfers, employee dismissals, and security authorizations."
Alejandro looked toward Vivian's bedroom.
"She built an entire version of me."
Brooks nodded.
"One your wife could hate."
The sentence landed hard.
They found a locked drawer beneath the desk.
The key was taped to the underside.
Inside were photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Alejandro with female employees.
Alejandro at dinners.
Alejandro entering hotels.
Alejandro hugging business partners.
All taken from angles that could be cropped into lies.
There were also pictures of Elena.
Some in the east wing.
Some in the garden at night.
Some asleep in the medical room.
Some standing near the mansion windows while Alejandro was visible outside in the distance.
He picked up one photograph.
Elena stood behind a curtain in the east wing.
Alejandro was crossing the courtyard forty feet away.
The photograph had been taken through a telephoto lens.
He had been that close.
He sat down because his knees stopped working.
Claire said nothing.
Brooks said nothing.
The silence was respect, not pity.
Alejandro turned the photograph over.
A date was written on the back.
It was his birthday two years earlier.
He remembered that day.
He had canceled a dinner and spent the evening alone.
Vivian told him Elena would have wanted him to celebrate.
Elena had been forty feet away.
"There's something else," a technician said.
He opened a hidden directory on the computer.
The folder was password protected.
The hint read: FIRST THING SHE STOLE.
Alejandro stared at the words.
"What did Vivian steal first?"
Claire shrugged.
"Money?"
"Identity?"
Mateo spoke from the doorway.
"A key."
Everyone looked at him.
"When Elena disappeared, Vivian said she found Mrs. Castillo's key ring in the driveway."
Alejandro remembered.
A silver ring with an antique blue enamel keychain.
Elena's grandmother had given it to her.
"Where is it now?"
Mateo shook his head.
"I haven't seen it in years."
The technician tried KEY.
Wrong.
He tried ELENA.
Wrong.
He tried BLUE.
Wrong.
Alejandro looked at the photographs again.
Then he remembered something Elena used to tease Vivian about.
Years earlier, Vivian once borrowed a vintage sapphire brooch from Elena and forgot to return it for six months.
"Sapphire."
The technician typed it.
The folder opened.
Inside were hundreds of documents.
The first file was titled RIVER ROAD.
Alejandro clicked it.
A video opened.
Night.
Rain.
A camera mounted inside a car.
Elena was driving.
Her face was tense.
Her phone rang.
She answered through the car speakers.
Sebastian Kline's voice filled the vehicle.
"Don't go to Alejandro's office."
Elena frowned.
"Why?"
"Because the money leads back to him."
Alejandro stopped breathing.
On the screen, Elena went pale.
"That's impossible."
Sebastian continued.
"Meet me on River Road."
"I can explain everything."
The video ended before Elena arrived.
Claire looked at Alejandro.
"He lured her."
Alejandro stared at the frozen image of his wife.
Then another file appeared below it.
Its title was AFTER IMPACT.
He clicked play.
The first frame showed Elena's wrecked car.
The second showed Vivian standing beside it.
The footage from River Road contained more than the visible scene.
Audio engineers isolated background sounds.
A freight train horn sounded in the distance.
Then church bells.
Then a short burst of radio traffic.
One phrase could be heard clearly.
"Gate two is clear."
Mateo recognized the radio protocol.
It belonged to Castillo estate security.
Alejandro stared at him.
"Someone at my gate knew a vehicle was coming."
Mateo looked sick.
"Yes."
"Who was on duty?"
The old roster showed two guards.
One died eighteen months earlier.
The other, Marcus Bell, had resigned six weeks after Elena disappeared.
Vivian claimed he moved to Florida.
Police records showed no Florida address.
His tax history stopped completely.
Another missing witness.
Brooks added his name to the list.
Elena listened to the gate transmission three times.
"That voice isn't one of the guards."
Mateo replayed it.
Then his face changed.
"It's dispatch."
"Who handled dispatch?" Brooks asked.
"Rotating staff."
"That night?"
Mateo pulled the roster.
The dispatcher field had been manually overwritten.
Original entry deleted.
Replacement entry read V-7.
At the time, V-7 meant Mateo's emergency security class.
Someone had used his designation to hide the dispatcher's identity.
The criminal use of V-7 appeared again before anyone understood what it meant.
Alejandro looked at the record.
"They didn't just use my signature."
May you like
Mateo nodded slowly.
"They used mine too."
