Chapter 9 - The Passport
Isabella’s passport had been missing for three weeks.
I hadn’t known.
Beatriz had reported it “lost” to nobody.
She simply removed it from the villa and stored it in a hotel safe under another name.
The police recovered surveillance footage showing her collecting it two hours after the board suspended Lucas.
Then she disappeared.
Every airport and border point was notified.
Her accounts were monitored.
But Beatriz was not stupid.
She knew I would expect her to run.
So she didn’t.
She remained somewhere close.
I could feel it.
That night, Isabella sat at Sofia’s kitchen table eating tomato soup.
She looked at me.
“Is Beatriz coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she angry?”
“Yes.”
She stirred the soup.
“At me?”
“No.”
“She’ll say she is.”
I stopped.
“Why?”
“Because I told.”
“You told the truth.”
“She says telling is worse than doing.”
I crouched beside her.
“Beatriz says many things that are wrong.”
Isabella considered that.
Then she asked,
“Will she go to jail?”
I didn’t lie.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want her to?”
Another difficult question.
“I want people to be responsible for what they do.”
“Even family?”
“Especially family.”
She looked down.
“Then Uncle Lucas too?”
I stared at her.
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
Then she whispered,
“He has Mom’s letter.”
My pulse changed.
“What?”
“Uncle Lucas.”
“How do you know?”
“He showed me.”
“When?”
“At school.”
My heart pounded.
“What letter?”
“A yellow one.”
Elena’s letter from the deposit box had been written on cream stationery.
It might look yellow to a child.
“What did he say?”
“He said Mom wrote something bad about you.”
My hands went cold.
“Did you read it?”
“No.”
“He didn’t let me.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked where the little key was.”
It had happened before Mateo stole the necklace.
Lucas had used the letter to manipulate her.
“What did he say was bad?”
Isabella stared into the soup.
“He said Mom didn’t trust you.”
The cruel precision of it shocked me.
He had taken a dead woman’s words meant for her daughter and turned them into a weapon.
“What did you say?”
“I told him Mom loved you.”
My eyes burned.
“He said people can love you and still know you’re weak.”
That sounded exactly like Lucas.
“What happened then?”
“I told him he was mean.”
For the first time, I almost smiled.
“What did he do?”
“He laughed.”
She looked at me.
“Then he said Beatriz was stronger than you.”
I swallowed.
“And what did you think?”
Isabella considered the question seriously.
“I think strong people don’t make kids carry garbage.”
I laughed.
One short breath.
Then she smiled.
The first genuine smile I had seen since coming home.
That tiny moment mattered more than every board vote.
The next clue came from Beatriz’s second phone.
Police found it inside a locker at a private gym.
Apparently she had forgotten the locker contract was linked to her real identity.
The phone contained hundreds of messages.
Many deleted.
Forensics recovered enough.
Mateo.
Lucas.
Hugo.
And one number labeled simply:
M.
At first I assumed Mateo.
Wrong.
Mateo was saved under his full name.
M was someone else.
The messages were different.
More cautious.
M wrote:
Your husband’s travel pattern is predictable.
Beatriz:
He changes flights sometimes.
M:
Not when Mateo books them.
Another:
M:
If Daniel refuses Zurich, use the medical route.
Beatriz:
Lucas says he’ll sign.
M:
Lucas believes what he needs to believe.
That sentence mattered.
Whoever M was, they were not merely following Lucas.
They were using him too.
I asked Javier,
“Who knows my travel pattern?”
“Half the company.”
“Who knows Mateo books my flights?”
“Executive team.”
“Who understands the trust, medical incapacity, and Zurich documents?”
“Hugo.”
“Hugo isn’t M.”
“How do you know?”
“Because M writes like someone above them.”
Javier stared at the messages.
Then he said,
“Teresa?”
I looked at him sharply.
“No.”
“You trust her?”
“Elena did.”
“That isn’t proof.”
He was right.
I hated that.
We traced the number.
Prepaid.
Purchased in Gibraltar.
Activated six years earlier.
Six years.
Before Beatriz.
Before Elena died.
That changed everything.
The conspiracy did not begin with Beatriz.
Maybe it didn’t begin with Lucas either.
That evening, Teresa called me.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“Elena’s original notes mention a person she called M.”
My body went cold.
“What did she write?”
“Only three entries.”
Teresa read them.
M warned me Lucas is moving money again.
Then:
M says Mateo knows more than he admits.
Then the final entry.
Teresa’s voice slowed.
Do not tell Daniel yet. M says Daniel trusts the wrong brother.
I stood completely still.
“M was helping Elena?”
“Apparently.”
“Then why is M helping Beatriz now?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message.
You’re asking the wrong question.
I stared at it.
Another appeared.
I never helped Beatriz. I watched her.
Then:
If you want Elena’s letter back, come alone.
An address followed.
An abandoned restaurant overlooking the sea outside Benahavís.
Javier saw my face.
“No.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“M asked me to.”
“That’s precisely why you’re not going.”
I sent the address to police.
Then drove anyway.
Not alone.
Luis followed at a distance.
The building was dark.
Wind moved through broken terrace doors.
Inside, one table stood beneath a hanging light.
An envelope lay on it.
No person.
I approached.
Elena’s handwriting.
For Isabella.
Her letter.
I touched it.
Then a phone rang somewhere in the darkness.
I followed the sound.
A cheap mobile lay on a chair.
I answered.
A woman’s voice.
Distorted electronically.
“Daniel.”
“Who are you?”
“You still don’t listen.”
“Then teach me.”
“Lucas is dangerous.”
“I know.”
“Mateo is greedy.”
“I know.”
“Beatriz is desperate.”
“I know.”
“But none of them designed this.”
My body went still.
“Who did?”
Silence.
Then:
“The person who taught Lucas how to hate you.”
I stopped breathing.
“Our father is dead.”
The voice answered,
“Yes.”
A pause.
May you like
“But your mother isn’t.”
The line went dead.
