Chapter 5 - EIGHT SEVENTEEN
"Ask about eight-seventeen."
I read Sofia's handwriting until the numbers blurred.
Dr. Vale watched me from across the desk.
"Do you recognize it?"
"No."
Elena, standing near the window, suddenly covered her mouth.
I turned.
"What?"
"The garage."
"What garage?"
"The private service garage behind your old shipping office. Sofia went there the morning she died."
I frowned.
"Her car was serviced there every month."
"Not that morning. She went because she'd found something strange in the security log."
Dr. Vale leaned forward.
"What kind of entry?"
Elena looked at me.
"Someone had accessed the garage at 8:17 the previous evening. Using your executive security badge."
I went cold.
Five years earlier, on the night before Sofia died, I had been in Milwaukee negotiating a shipping contract.
I remembered because Sofia had complained about my missing dinner.
I hadn't returned to Chicago until almost midnight.
"Someone used my badge while I was out of town."
Elena nodded.
"And Sofia knew."
I looked toward the framed photograph above my desk.
My wedding day.
Sofia smiling beneath an arch of white flowers.
I'd spent five years asking why she hadn't called me before the accident.
Now I was beginning to understand.
She'd been investigating someone who could impersonate me inside my own organization.
"Who controlled those security records?" I asked.
Elena didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
Rafael.
I reached for my phone, then stopped.
Old habits were dangerous.
For twenty years, I'd trusted Rafael to investigate threats before they reached me.
Now I needed someone outside his influence.
I called Marcus Bell, a retired Chicago detective who had helped my family during a kidnapping case years earlier.
Marcus had left police work after refusing to overlook corruption inside his own department.
We didn't always agree.
That was why I trusted him.
"Marcus," I said, "I need you to examine an accident from five years ago."
"Whose?"
"My wife's."
A long silence.
Then he said, "Alejandro, I told you back then that the investigation moved too quickly."
My stomach tightened.
"You never told me that."
"I tried. Rafael said you weren't well enough to hear it."
I closed my eyes.
Another decision made for me.
Another piece of my life controlled by someone I trusted.
"Come to the house," I said.
"And Marcus?"
"Bring someone who understands old security systems."
After I ended the call, I went to the sunroom.
The boys were building a tower from wooden blocks Elena had found in storage.
Luca knocked it over accidentally.
Tomas started crying.
Before I could help, Mateo put an arm around his brother.
"It's okay. We can make another."
The words struck me harder than I expected.
For five years, I'd believed nothing broken in my life could be rebuilt.
Yet these four children were doing exactly that.
I sat on the rug.
"Can I help?"
Nico handed me a block.
"You're the wall."
"The wall?"
"So it doesn't fall."
I positioned my hands around their tower.
Four little faces concentrated on the blocks.
For a few minutes, I forgot about security cameras and missing financial records.
Then Mateo reached into his backpack.
"Look what Uncle Rafe gave us."
He held up a red toy car.
My hands froze.
"Who?"
"Uncle Rafe."
"Where did you meet him?"
"At the park."
Elena hurried into the room.
"Mateo, sweetheart—"
I raised a hand.
"Let him talk."
Mateo pushed the toy across the floor.
"He said he knew our mommy."
I struggled to keep my voice gentle.
"When was that?"
He thought carefully.
"Before my birthday."
His fourth birthday had been months earlier.
Rafael had known about my sons long before today.
"Did he tell you anything else?"
Mateo nodded.
"He said you were busy."
I swallowed.
"Busy doing what?"
"Being important."
The boy looked up at me.
"Are you too important to play?"
Something inside me broke.
I took the little red car.
"No," I said. "Never that important."
That afternoon, I arranged for the boys to remain in a secure upstairs suite with Elena while I went to meet Rosa Vega.
Dr. Vale knew the address Rosa had recently used.
It was a modest two-story house on Chicago's Northwest Side.
When I arrived, the curtains were closed.
Rosa opened the door only after Marcus identified himself.
She looked older than I remembered.
Her hair had silver strands.
But the little cross still rested against her throat.
She stared at me for several seconds.
Then she began to cry.
"They have your face," she whispered.
"I know."
"All four of them."
"I know."
She stepped aside.
Inside, four small winter coats hung beside the door.
Four pairs of boots waited beneath them.
I stared at those tiny shoes.
An entire childhood had been happening while I lived twenty minutes away.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.
Rosa lowered her head.
"Because I promised Sofia."
"She trusted you with my children."
"And I love them as my own."
I believed her.
The house was full of evidence.
Crayon drawings covered the refrigerator.
Four toothbrushes stood in a bathroom cup.
Their heights were marked on the kitchen doorframe.
Then I noticed something unusual.
A blue ribbon was tied around the handle of a kitchen cabinet.
"What's that?"
Rosa followed my gaze.
"Sofia tied it there before she died. She said if anything happened to her, I should remember where she placed her last gift."
I opened the cabinet.
Inside was a small wooden box.
Rosa looked startled.
"I haven't opened that in years."
The box contained a silver bracelet, a folded cloth, and a handwritten note.
The bracelet belonged to Sofia.
I recognized its tiny engraved stars.
I'd given it to her on our third anniversary.
Beneath it lay a narrow paper receipt.
From the private Moretti garage.
Dated the night before her death.
Time: 8:17 p.m.
Authorized visitor: A. Moretti.
Service performed: Emergency brake-system inspection.
But beneath that entry was a second signature.
Not mine.
I knew the handwriting.
Rafael De Santis.
May you like
And across the bottom, Sofia had written:
HE WASN'T CHECKING THE BRAKES.
