Chương 10
I felt my pulse quicken.
“Call her.”
Alejandro did.
Lucía answered immediately, whispering.
“Why are you whispering?” he asked.
“Because she’s in my bathroom.”
“What?”
“She says she got sick.”
“Is she actually sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the box?”
“I told you.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
Lucía’s voice sharpened.
“No.”
Alejandro closed his eyes.
“What?”
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Give me orders and tell me nothing.”
“Lucía.”
“No.”
Her voice rose, then dropped again.
“She came here crying.”
Alejandro glanced at me.
“Crying?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That Mariana is trying to destroy the family.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was so predictable.
Alejandro’s face hardened.
“What else?”
“She said there are documents from Dad’s company that people could misunderstand.”
“What documents?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Did she ask you to get the box?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good?”
Alejandro hesitated.
I mouthed, Tell her enough.
He nodded.
“There may be a financial investigation involving Tomás.”
Silence.
Then Lucía said, “What?”
“And Mom may be connected somehow.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t know what’s true yet.”
“You just said she’s connected.”
“I said she may be.”
Lucía’s voice shook.
“No.”
I could hear movement on her end.
A door shutting.
“She wouldn’t steal from you.”
“Nobody said she stole.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That we need the papers preserved.”
Lucía breathed hard into the phone.
“My kids are asleep here.”
“I know.”
“And she’s here.”
“I know.”
“I’m not turning my apartment into evidence storage for your company.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“It feels like it.”
She sounded close to tears now.
Then her voice changed.
“What happened tonight?”
Alejandro looked at me.
I shook my head.
Not now.
“Mom and Mariana argued.”
“Argued?”
“She destroyed some of Mariana’s clothes.”
Lucía went silent.
“She did what?”
“You saw it.”
“I left before she tore more than one thing.”
“She tore two.”
“Jesus.”
Alejandro looked toward the kitchen.
“Lucía, listen to me.”
“No, you listen.”
Her anger came suddenly.
“She called me from the car afterward and said Mariana attacked her.”
My stomach dropped.
Alejandro’s voice sharpened.
“Physically?”
“She said Mariana came at her.”
“That didn’t happen.”
“I know what I saw.”
“Did she say she was hurt?”
“No.”
“Did she say she was going to report it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lucía.”
“I don’t know.”
The bathroom door opened faintly on her end.
Lucía stopped talking.
Then Teresa’s voice came through, distant but clear.
“Who are you talking to?”
The line went dead.
Alejandro called back.
No answer.
He tried again.
Nothing.
I picked up my phone.
“Who?”
“Elena.”
“You said—”
“This is no longer about the company alone.”
He understood.
I called my attorney.
She answered on the fifth ring, sounding awake enough to be dangerous.
“Tell me nobody is dead.”
“Nobody is dead.”
“Good start.”
“I need advice.”
“You always call after midnight when you need expensive advice.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Then I told her about Teresa, the allegation relayed through Lucía, and the document box.
I left out the corporate investigation except where it overlapped.
Elena listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she said, “Do not go to Lucía’s apartment.”
“We weren’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“Do we call the police?”
“For what?”
“Possible destruction of evidence.”
“Evidence of what crime?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then no.”
“What about Teresa accusing me?”
“Preserve your recording.”
“I already did.”
“Back it up somewhere you don’t control alone.”
“It’s with you.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Photograph the damaged property.”
“Done.”
“Do not contact Teresa.”
“I won’t.”
“And if she contacts you?”
“Save it.”
“Correct.”
Alejandro stood beside me with his arms crossed.
Elena continued.
“As for the box, if it belongs to Lucía and she wants legal guidance, she should get her own lawyer.”
“It was her father’s.”
“Then ownership may be messier.”
“Can she give it to us?”
“Maybe.”
“Should she?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what’s in it, you have a direct conflict, and transporting it into your house could create unnecessary questions later.”
“So we do nothing again.”
“You preserve what is already yours and let professionals handle what isn’t.”
I looked at Alejandro.
He gave me a tired, humorless smile.
Apparently lawyers and CFOs were conspiring to teach us patience.
Then his phone lit up.
A message from Teresa.
He read it.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
It contained only one sentence.
If Mariana wants the truth, tell her to ask what happened to her first Toluca bid.
I read Teresa’s message twice.
The first Toluca bid.
Not the current expansion.
Not Grupo Marea.
Something older.
I looked at Alejandro.
“What does she mean?”
His expression had gone blank in the way people’s faces do when the mind starts searching rooms it has not entered in years.
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I am.”
“Elena is still on the line,” I said.
Alejandro glanced at my phone.
Elena’s voice came through the speaker.
“I heard that.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Ruta Norte bid on a Toluca distribution contract years ago.”
“How many years?” Elena asked.
“Before Mariana and I were married.”
I stared at him.
“I remember the bid.”
He looked at me.
“You do?”
“Of course I do.”
It had been one of the first contracts large enough to change the company’s future.
We were still renting a narrow second-floor office in Querétaro, and during that bid I had slept on a folding couch twice because the morning traffic made going home pointless.
We lost by less than three percent.
I had been furious for a week.
Then embarrassed by how furious I had been.
“What happened to it?” I asked.
“We lost.”
“That’s not what your mother is implying.”
“No.”
Elena said, “Do either of you know why you lost?”
“Price,” I said automatically.
May you like
Then I stopped.
At the time, that had been the official answer.
