Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN RENATA CALLED MOM
Renata could not speak.
So she wrote.
Her hand shook less now.
That was the first good thing.
The second was that her eyes were fully open.
The third was that when I stepped into the room, she squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt.
I had never been happier to feel pain.
I sat beside her.
“I found Box 214.”
Her eyes widened.
“I read the letter.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You met Margaret Reed?”
Renata nodded.
“Was Margaret the woman you meant when you wrote that Mom visited you?”
She shook her head.
My stomach tightened.
I handed her a pad.
She wrote slowly.
MARGARET BROUGHT SOMEONE.
“Who?”
Renata’s pen stopped.
She looked at me.
Then wrote:
SHE SAID HER NAME WAS ANA.
“Did you know her?”
Renata hesitated.
NO.
Another line.
BUT SHE KNEW THINGS ONLY MOM COULD KNOW.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
“What things?”
Renata wrote about a song Elena used to hum while pregnant.
A crack in the kitchen wall of our first apartment.
A stupid argument Elena and I had over baby names.
The fact that I once wanted to name Renata after my grandmother and Elena threatened to leave me if I did.
No police report contained those things.
No newspaper.
No public record.
“Did she say she was Elena?”
Renata shook her head.
“Then what did she say?”
The answer took almost a minute.
SHE SAID, “I WAS THERE THE NIGHT YOUR MOTHER DISAPPEARED.”
Disappeared.
Not died.
“Where is Ana now?”
Renata wrote an address.
A motel in New Jersey.
Marco and I drove there that afternoon.
Room 17 had been emptied.
The manager remembered two women.
One older.
One younger.
The older woman matched Margaret.
The younger one was perhaps fifty.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
She wore sunglasses inside.
She paid cash.
They left the morning after Renata’s attack.
“Did they leave anything?”
The manager shook his head.
Then paused.
“Actually.”
He opened a drawer.
“A book.”
It was a cheap paperback.
Inside the cover was a handwritten number.
Marco dialed from a prepaid phone.
A woman answered.
No greeting.
Marco handed me the phone.
“Elena?”
Silence.
My chest tightened until breathing hurt.
Then the woman spoke.
“Daniel.”
One word.
I closed my eyes.
Not Elena.
But familiar.
Very familiar.
“Ana?”
“That is what I use now.”
“Who are you?”
“You knew me as Sofia Marin.”
Memory returned.
Elena’s cousin.
Not blood.
A childhood friend so close they called each other cousins.
She had attended our wedding.
Then disappeared from our lives after Renata was born.
“You told my daughter you were there the night Elena disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Is Elena alive?”
A long pause.
“No.”
The hope I had not allowed myself to feel died anyway.
“How did she die?”
“Not on the highway.”
“Where?”
“In a clinic outside Newark.”
My knees weakened.
“What happened?”
“The crash was staged.”
I gripped the motel desk.
“By Tomas?”
“By people working for him.”
“Why?”
“Elena had the ledger.”
“I found it.”
“Then she succeeded.”
“What happened after the crash?”
“They pulled her from the car before it went over the guardrail.”
“Who?”
“Margaret and me.”
“You were following her?”
“Elena asked us to.”
“Why didn’t you bring her to me?”
“She wouldn’t let us.”
Anger exploded through the grief.
“You expect me to believe my wife survived and chose not to call me?”
“She believed your phone was compromised.”
“She could have come home.”
“She had internal bleeding.”
I stopped.
Sofia’s voice softened.
“She died six hours later.”
The room tilted.
“Was she conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ask for me?”
“All night.”
I pressed my fist against my mouth.
Marco looked away.
“What did she say?”
“She made us promise to keep you away from Tomas.”
“You had no right.”
“No.”
Sofia’s voice cracked.
“We didn’t.”
“Where is she buried?”
Silence.
“Sofia.”
“Not buried.”
“What?”
“Cremated under another name.”
“Where are her ashes?”
“I have them.”
Nineteen years.
My wife had been reduced to ashes carried by a woman I had not spoken to since my daughter was a baby.
“Why contact Renata now?”
“Because Margaret discovered Tomas was watching her.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“Elena created two files.”
“I know.”
“The ledger in Box 214 proves how the families financed Tomas.”
“And the second?”
“Proves what they became.”
“What does that mean?”
“Bribery.”
“Election money.”
“Construction fraud.”
“Federal contracts.”
“Judges.”
“Police.”
“Everything built after you left.”
“Where is it?”
“Tomas doesn’t know.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Margaret?”
“She did.”
Past tense.
“Did?”
Silence.
Then Sofia whispered:
“Margaret disappeared yesterday.”
My skin went cold.
“When?”
“After she left the motel.”
“Where was she going?”
“To see Emmett Varela.”
“Why?”
“Because Emmett contacted her.”
“About what?”
“He said his grandfather kept something Elena had hidden.”
“The second file?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Marco.
“Where is Emmett now?”
“No one knows.”
Sofia continued.
“Daniel, listen carefully.”
“What?”
“Renata’s attack changed something.”
“What?”
“The heirs were supposed to frighten her and take the key.”
“I know.”
“Tomas never ordered them to nearly kill her.”
“So?”
“Someone changed the instructions.”
“Who?”
“That is what you need to understand.”
Sofia inhaled.
“Tomas may be your enemy.”
A pause.
“But he is not the only person terrified of what Elena left behind.”
The call disconnected.
Marco stared at me.
“You believe her?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“No.”
I picked up the forgotten paperback.
Something fell from between the pages.
A photograph.
Three young men leaving the university science building the night Renata was attacked.
Santiago.
Maurice.
Emmett.
Behind them stood a fourth person.
A woman.
Perfect posture.
Silver hair.
Pearl-gray coat.
Senator Evelyn Beltran.
Maurice’s mother.
On the back, Margaret had written four words.
SHE CHANGED THE ORDER.
The boys had attacked my daughter.
Tomas had put the target in front of them.
May you like
But the person who had decided Renata needed to be permanently silenced…
might have been one of the most powerful women in Washington.
