Chương 4
“No.”
“Who owns it?”
“Technically, an entity called Naviera del Centro Holdings.”
“Technically?”
“It’s a shell with two listed administrators.”
“Names?”
“One is an accountant in Puebla.”
“And the other?”
Daniel went silent.
A cold feeling crawled slowly between my shoulder blades.
“Daniel.”
“Do you remember Alejandro’s cousin Tomás?”
I did.
Tomás had attended our wedding and spent most of the reception complaining that the tequila was overpriced.
He had also borrowed money from Alejandro twice and repaid neither loan on time.
“What about him?”
“He’s the second administrator.”
I stared at the stove.
A half-covered pan of roasted vegetables sat untouched beside it.
“What exactly does that prove?”
“Nothing by itself.”
“Good.”
“But it’s a conflict that should have been disclosed.”
“Was it?”
“Not that I can find.”
I thought of Teresa in my kitchen saying everything belonged to her son.
I thought of Alejandro asking me why correcting her mattered.
I thought of his face when I told Teresa the SUV belonged to the company.
Not surprise.
Fear.
“Did Tomás ever visit Toluca?”
“I haven’t checked.”
“Check.”
“Tonight.”
“Yes.”
“And Teresa’s visits?”
“I’ll compare dates.”
“With payments.”
“That’s what I was going to do.”
I heard the fatigue in his voice then.
He had probably been working since before sunrise.
“Go home after that.”
He gave a quiet snort.
“My wife has already texted me a photograph of my dinner in the trash.”
“Then definitely go home.”
“She added a thumbs-up.”
“That’s serious.”
“Extremely.”
For five seconds, the conversation felt almost normal.
Then he said, “Mariana.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t confront Alejandro tonight.”
The warmth disappeared.
“He told me we need to talk tomorrow.”
“Then let him talk.”
“You think he knows.”
“I think we don’t know enough.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Daniel sighed.
“I think his behavior over the past week suggests he knows something is wrong.”
“What behavior?”
“He canceled two budget meetings.”
“He told me he had migraines.”
“He may have.”
“What else?”
“He asked IT whether archived Slack messages remain recoverable after account migration.”
My grip tightened again.
“When?”
“Thursday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Thursday?”
“Because executives ask strange questions every day, and one question isn’t evidence.”
“Combined with the rest?”
“Combined with the rest, I’m telling you now.”
I looked toward the front hallway.
Alejandro’s umbrella was still in the stand.
His running shoes were still beside the bench.
A charger he constantly misplaced hung from the outlet near the console table.
The ordinary evidence of marriage was everywhere.
People talked about betrayal as if the world changed color when it happened.
It did not.
The same charger remained plugged into the same wall.
“Send me everything you can legally send,” I said.
“I’ll send a secure link.”
“And Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Do not protect me.”
His reply came after a moment.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“If Alejandro is innocent, the process needs to prove that too.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“And if he isn’t?”
I looked down at my wedding ring.
“Then the process doesn’t change.”
After we ended the call, I stood in the kitchen another minute before noticing my bare feet were cold.
I turned off the music in the living room.
Then I cleaned.
Not because anything was cleanable in any meaningful sense, but because leaving six wineglasses on the island felt intolerable.
I wrapped the uneaten fish, threw away wilted greens, wiped spilled mineral water from the counter, and put the lime bowl back in the center of the table.
When I reached for Teresa’s untouched plate, I found something underneath it.
A folded receipt.
At first I assumed it belonged to one of the guests.
Then I saw the printed address.
Toluca.
The date was three weeks earlier.
The receipt was from a restaurant less than two kilometers from the temporary Ruta Norte project office.
Two meals.
One bottle of wine.
Paid in cash.
On the back, in Teresa’s handwriting, were four words.
Tell Tomás I handled it.
I read the four words twice before touching the receipt again.
The handwriting was unmistakable because Teresa wrote capital T’s like tiny crosses and dragged the final stroke of every lowercase s too far to the right.
I photographed both sides of the receipt where it lay.
Then I photographed it beside Teresa’s plate.
Then I slipped it into a clean envelope from the drawer where I kept spare checks and warranty papers.
My first impulse was to call Daniel back.
My second was to call Alejandro.
I did neither.
Instead I stood at the kitchen sink with both hands gripping the edge of the counter and listened to the pipes tick inside the wall.
There was something almost insulting about how ordinary the house sounded.
The dishwasher clicked.
A motorcycle passed somewhere beyond the gates.
A neighbor’s dog barked twice and then stopped.
My phone vibrated.
Alejandro.
I let it ring.
Thirty seconds later, a message appeared.
I need to come back.
I stared at it without answering.
Another message followed.
Please.
I walked to the front window and looked down the street.
No headlights had stopped outside.
I typed, Why.
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
I left my medication.
That was plausible.
He kept sumatriptan in the upstairs bathroom for his migraines, and he had complained twice that week about the headaches.
I almost wrote that I would have someone bring it to him.
Then another message came.
And I need to talk to you tonight.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Daniel had told me not to confront him.
He had not told me not to listen.
Come alone, I wrote.
No one else comes inside.
He replied with one word.
Okay.
I carried the envelope upstairs and put it in the small locking drawer inside my study desk.
Then I changed the code.
The act felt theatrical and paranoid.
May you like
I did it anyway.
By the time Alejandro arrived, I had changed out of my dinner clothes and into old black pants and a gray sweater with a coffee stain near the cuff.
