Part 4
“Because your father asked us to keep it private during the succession dispute.”
Rafael lowered his eyes.
Andrés turned on him. “You asked her to hide us?”
“I asked both of you to avoid public disclosure until the board completed the governance review.”
“You said it would protect Elena from accusations that you hired her because of me.”
“It was meant to.”
“And now Clara has a memorandum Elena never received and an email calling her compromised.”
Rafael sat in the second chair. He seemed to choose each word before releasing it.
“I made secrecy look like deception.”
No one contradicted him.
A nurse entered to check Elena’s blood pressure. Rafael and Andrés fell silent with the speed of men accustomed to hiding family disputes from staff.
The cuff tightened around Elena’s arm. The nurse watched the numbers, waited, and repeated the reading.
“It’s elevated,” she said.
“I’ve had a difficult afternoon.”
“So has your blood pressure.”
The nurse dimmed the lights and told them Elena needed rest. Rafael stood immediately. Andrés did not.
Before leaving, Rafael touched the foot of the bed.
“I will not allow Clara to control what happens next.”
Elena looked at him. “You don’t control what happens next.”
He absorbed the correction. “No.”
“And you cannot fire her tonight.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You must suspend her access and authority pending an independent investigation. If you fire her before evidence is preserved, she will say you retaliated because I am carrying your grandchild. If you direct the investigation yourself, she will say the same.”
“She pushed you.”
“I know.”
“I saw you on the floor.”
“You saw the aftermath.”
“I heard what you said.”
“That is not the same as independent proof.”
His face changed. Not softened, exactly, but became less certain.
“Who would you appoint?” he asked.
“Outside counsel chosen by trustees who are not implicated in the financial review and have no family connection to me.”
“And the police?”
“When they come, I will give a statement.”
Andrés turned from the window. “You’re pressing charges?”
“I am telling the truth about an assault.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It is the answer I have.”
Rafael left without saying good night.
The police arrived shortly after nine. A uniformed officer took the initial report while a plainclothes investigator named Sofía Benavent listened from the corner and asked only a few questions.
Elena described the confrontation from the moment Clara blocked her path. She explained the report, the demand to revise it, the movement of the burgundy case, the shove, and the fall. She did not describe Clara as jealous, unstable, or evil. Motive, she knew, was where frightened witnesses often became storytellers.
“Did she strike your abdomen?” Sofía asked.
“No.”
“Did she intend for you to fall?”
“I can’t know her intention.”
“Did she appear surprised?”
“Not immediately.”
“And afterward?”
“When Mr. Ibarra said I was carrying his grandchild.”
Sofía looked up. “She did not know?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because my marriage was private within the foundation.”
The investigator glanced toward Andrés, who had remained near the door.
“Private or concealed?”
Elena felt the distinction land exactly where Clara had intended.
“Both,” she said.
Andrés shifted his weight but did not interrupt.
Sofía asked about the document case. Elena listed what it had contained to the best of her memory. Original board packets, annotations, photocopied invoices, two sets of minutes, a handwritten payment sequence, and a sealed envelope from the auditor that Elena had not yet opened because Clara had demanded the meeting before she could return to her office.
“Why was the case in Ms. Vidal’s possession?”
“She took it from my hand during the argument.”
“Before or after the shove?”
“Before.”
“Did you try to take it back?”
“Yes.”
“Could the physical contact have occurred during a struggle over the case?”
“There was no struggle. She held it away from me, swung it across my path, and pushed my shoulder.”
Sofía wrote for several seconds. “Are there cameras?”
“Yes, though a column may obstruct the exact point.”
“Witnesses?”
“Mateo Ruiz saw the aftermath. Other guests were in the hall.”
“Anyone see the push?”
“I don’t know.”
The investigator closed her notebook.
“I will speak with Ms. Vidal. Preserve any messages between you. Do not contact her directly.”
“I had no intention of doing so.”
Sofía looked at the monitor around Elena’s abdomen. “People often intend many things before they become frightened.”
After the police left, Andrés pulled the chair closer to the bed.
“You answered as though you were taking your own deposition.”
“I was trying to be accurate.”
“You said our marriage was concealed.”
“It was.”
“By us.”
“Yes.”
“At my father’s request.”
“And our agreement.”
He leaned back. “You could have said it differently.”
“To make us look better?”
“To make you look less compromised.”
Elena turned her face toward him. “That is exactly what Clara asked me to do with the report.”
The words remained between them.
Andrés stood so abruptly that the chair legs scraped the floor. The fetal monitor changed pitch when Elena flinched.
He froze.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She pressed one hand against the mattress until the tightening in her abdomen eased.
“Go home,” she said.
“No.”
“I need quiet.”
“I can be quiet.”
“You haven’t been.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
He took his jacket from the hook, though he had not arrived with one. It belonged to Rafael. Andrés stared at it for a moment, confused, then left it where it was.
At the door he said, “I did not steal from the foundation.”
“I did not say you did.”
“You didn’t say you believed me either.”
Elena looked at the monitor.
May you like
He waited, but she had no answer that would not be either dishonest or cruel.
When the door closed, the room became so quiet she could hear the wheels of a cleaning cart moving down the corridor. The cleaner paused outside, changed the trash bag in the neighboring room, and hummed four uncertain notes from a song Elena could not place.
