Chapter 4: Before She Could Disappear
I was on my feet before the sound registered fully.
"Rosa, stay with Isabella."
I took the stairs two at a time.
The bedroom door was open.
Beatriz was at the wardrobe, pulling clothes from hangers with quick, efficient movements and dropping them into the open suitcase on the bed.
She had changed out of the silk robe.
She was dressed now — dark trousers, a jacket, flat shoes.
Travel clothes.
"Where are you going?" I said.
"Somewhere I can think clearly." She didn't look up.
"We both need space."
"You're not leaving with that folder."
"I don't have the folder.
You do." She lifted a stack of folded clothes and placed them in the suitcase.
"I'm taking my personal belongings and leaving for a few days.
I'm entitled to do that."
"Beatriz."
She stopped.
Looked at me.
"Sit down," I said.
"I'm not going to sit down."
"The folder I took upstairs contains evidence of corporate espionage.
You understand what that means legally?"
Her hands slowed.
But they didn't stop.
"I haven't done anything illegal," she said.
"Sharing information between a husband and wife is not a crjme."
"You shared it with Marcos Vidal.
Not with me."
"That's your interpretation."
"It's also my lawyer's interpretation.
And probably the Policía Nacional's interpretation." I watched her face.
"I know Rosa called Inspector Delgado three months ago."
The folding stopped.
She set the clothes down on the bed.
Turned to face me fully for the first time since we had come upstairs.
"Rosa had no right—"
"Rosa watched an eight-year-old girl carry garbage bags until her hands bled.
She had every right."
Beatriz's expression shifted into something I had never seen on her before.
Not fear exactly.
Something older and harder.
The look of someone who has been running a careful game and has just heard the first tile fall.
"What do you want?" she said.
"The truth.
All of it.
Starting with Marcos Vidal."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she sat on the edge of the bed.
Not because I had asked her to.
Because she was thinking.
"Marcos is my brother's business partner," she said.
I had met her brother twice.
Alejandro.
He lived in Valencia, ran an import business, had never shown any interest in real estate.
"Your brother is connected to Serrano Group?"
"Alejandro introduced me to Marcos eighteen months ago.
Marcos mentioned that Serrano Group was interested in your coastal properties.
He asked if I knew anything about your plans." She paused.
"I told him I didn't.
At first."
"And then?"
"And then you went to Dubai for three months and left me here alone with a child who isn't mine, in a house that runs on your schedule, your rules, your priorities." Her voice was controlled but something underneath it was not.
"Marcos called again.
He said Serrano Group would pay for useful information.
He said it would be our arrangement.
Mine and his."
"How much?"
She looked at the window.
"Beatriz.
How much did they pay you?"
"Two hundred and forty thousand euros.
Over fourteen months."
The number sat in the room between us.
"And what were you planning to do with it?"
"Leave." She said it simply.
No drama.
"When I had enough.
When I was ready.
I was going to leave and I was going to have enough money that you couldn't use your lawyers to make me disappear quietly."
I sat down in the chair near the window.
Not because my legs were weak.
Because I needed to think and I thought better sitting still.
"You were planning to leave me," I said.
"Yes."
"And in the meantime, you were taking money from my competitor and using my daughter as a household servant."
"Isabella is not your daughter."
The words landed like a physical thing.
I looked at her.
"What did you just say?"
Her chin came up.
"Isabella is not your biological daughter.
You've never known that.
I've known it since before she was born."
The room was very quiet.
My voice, when it came, was steadier than I expected it to be.
"Who is her father?"
Beatriz looked at her hands.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"A man I was with before you.
It was over before we married.
He doesn't know about her.
He never knew."
I stood up.
Walked to the window.
The garden was dark below.
The dumpsters were still where Isabella had dragged the bags.
The torn plastic was still on the stone.
"She is my daughter," I said.
"She has been my daughter for eight years."
"Biologically—"
"I was there when she was born.
I taught her to read.
I sat with her through every fever and every nightmare and every first day of school." I turned from the window.
"Whatever you believed you were telling me just now — it changes nothing about who Isabella is to me.
Nothing."
Beatriz looked at me for a long moment.
Then something in her face shifted.
Not softness.
Something more like recalculation.
"You should know," she said carefully, "that Marcos has copies of everything.
Not just the documents.
Recordings too.
Phone calls between you and your legal team.
Conversations about the Seville arrangement."
"How did he get recordings?"
She didn't answer.
I crossed the room in three steps and picked up her handbag from the dressing table.
She stood up sharply.
"That's mine—"
I turned the bag over and emptied it onto the bed.
Keys.
Wallet.
Lipstick.
A small notebook.
A phone.
And a second phone — smaller, older, a prepaid model with a cracked screen.
I picked up the prepaid phone.
She reached for it.
I stepped back.
"Give me that."
"Is this how he called you?"
"Give it to me right now."
I turned it over.
The screen lit up.
No password.
The last message in the inbox was from a contact saved only as M.
*He's home early.
Is it done?*
The timestamp was forty minutes ago.
I looked up at Beatriz.
May you like
Her hand was still extended.
But her eyes had gone to the door.
