Part 2
She turned the phone facedown against her chest. “In the ambulance.”
The paramedics transferred her onto the stretcher. The movement made the staircase slide out of view, then return above her at an angle. Clara had stepped aside to allow them through. She still held the case.
Elena’s report was inside it.
Not the final legal opinion, which existed on the foundation’s secure server, but the annotated board copy containing the original payment schedules, handwritten questions from two trustees, and the unsigned resolution Clara had demanded Elena revise. Elena had carried the case into the hall herself. Clara had taken it from her during the argument.
Now it rested against Clara’s ivory trouser leg as if it had always belonged there.
“Elena,” Clara said.
The paramedics paused because Clara stood too close to the stretcher.
Her expression had changed from disbelief to something almost gentle. It was the face she used when speaking to grieving donors, dismissed employees, and journalists whose questions she disliked.
“This was an accident,” she said. “You’re frightened. We all are.”
Elena looked at the burgundy case.
“Give that to Mateo.”
Clara’s thumb moved over the brass clasp. “It contains confidential material.”
“It belongs to the foundation.”
“I am the executive director.”
“And I am its legal adviser.”
Lucía touched Clara’s forearm. “Please step back.”
Clara did, but she kept the case.
The dark carved doors opened, and cooler air moved across the hall. As the paramedics rolled Elena outside, she caught one last glimpse of Rafael standing at the foot of the stairs. He was not watching her.
He was watching Clara.
Hospital del Mar had a maternity triage entrance that looked nothing like the private clinic Elena had imagined using when labor began. The walls were painted a tired blue. A vending machine hummed beside a row of molded chairs. A child in a football jersey slept with his head in his grandmother’s lap while a nurse tried to repair a printer by opening and closing the paper tray.
Elena was taken through double doors before she finished leaving Andrés a message.
“There was an incident at the foundation,” she said after the tone. “I fell. The baby is moving. I’m at Hospital del Mar. Please come, but drive carefully.”
She listened to the recording before sending it. The phrase the baby is moving sounded like evidence she was trying to present to a court.
A monitor was strapped around her abdomen. The fetal heartbeat filled the examination room in quick, watery beats.
Elena had spent months pretending the sound did not terrify her. At twelve weeks, it had seemed too fast. At twenty weeks, too faint. At every appointment, the doctor had told her it was normal.
Now the rhythm held steady.
She covered her face with both hands.
The nurse adjusted the monitor and did not tell her not to cry. She simply moved a box of tissues within reach.
“There’s no visible bleeding,” the obstetrician said after the ultrasound. “The placenta appears intact. That’s good. But after a fall at thirty-three weeks, we observe for contractions, changes in the fetal heart rate, or signs of placental separation that are not immediately visible.”
“How long?”
“At least overnight. Longer if anything concerns us.”
Elena nodded.
“Did someone push you?”
The question was asked without drama. The obstetrician held the ultrasound probe still.
“Yes.”
“Do you feel safe with the person who did it?”
“She works with me.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Elena looked toward the gray window. The hospital faced the sea, but from the examination room she could see only a concrete wall and a strip of reflected sky.
“I don’t know,” she said.
The obstetrician wrote something in the chart. “A social worker may speak with you. The police may also ask whether you want to make a statement. You do not need to decide everything right now.”
Elena almost corrected her. In legal practice, delaying a decision was often a decision with consequences. Witness memories changed. records disappeared. People coordinated their stories.
The baby kicked beneath the monitor.
For several seconds Elena concentrated on that movement and nothing else.
Andrés arrived twenty-eight minutes after her message, wearing the pale blue shirt he had put on for the reception but no jacket. His dark hair was damp at the temples. He stopped just inside the room and looked at the monitors before he looked at her.
“What did they say?”
“That we’re stable.”
“We?”
“The baby and me.”
He gripped the bed rail. “What happened?”
Elena glanced toward the nurse, who was entering readings into a computer.
“Clara pushed me.”
Andrés stared at her.
“On the stairs,” she added.
He sat down hard in the plastic chair. For a moment he appeared to be listening to something far away.
“My father said there was a fall.”
“There was.”
“He said Clara was involved.”
“She pushed me after I refused to change the report.”
Andrés rubbed both hands over his face. “Jesus.”
The nurse finished typing and left. The door closed softly.
“What report?” he asked, though Elena knew he understood.
“The review of the emergency transfers.”
“Elena.”
“What?”
He lowered his voice. “You told me it wasn’t finished.”
“It wasn’t signed. That doesn’t mean I hadn’t reached conclusions.”
“You said you were still reviewing the construction payments.”
“I was.”
“And?”
“And your company is in the appendices.”
His eyes moved from her face to the fetal monitor. “My company completed the work.”
“At rates approved without a competitive process.”
“There was no time for a competitive process. The center’s sea wall had collapsed.”
“I know.”
“Then why are we speaking as though I stole something?”
“We aren’t.”
“It sounds like we are.”
Elena felt a tightening low across her abdomen. She stopped breathing until it passed.
Andrés noticed. “Was that a contraction?”
“I don’t know.”
He stood and reached for the call button.
“It’s gone.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
May you like
“It’s gone.”
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. The monitor continued its rapid, indifferent rhythm.
