Chapter 5: The Man Called M
I pocketed the prepaid phone.
Beatriz dropped her hand.
She sat back down on the edge of the bed and said nothing.
The calculation behind her eyes was visible now — she wasn't bothering to hide it anymore.
"He knows I'm home," I said.
"Yes."
"He messaged you forty minutes ago asking if something was done.
What was supposed to be done?"
She was quiet.
"Beatriz."
"He wanted me to get the folder back." She said it flatly.
"The one you found upstairs.
He said if you ever found it, I needed to retrieve it before you could have it analyzed."
"And if you couldn't retrieve it?"
She looked at the window.
"He said he would handle it another way."
I took out my own phone and called my head of security.
Tomás had worked for me for eleven years.
He picked up on the second ring.
"I need you at the villa," I said.
"Tonight.
Bring whoever you trust."
"How soon?"
"Now."
I hung up.
Beatriz hadn't moved.
"Who is Marcos Vidal to you?" I said.
"Not your brother's partner.
To you."
She looked at her hands.
"He was someone I thought understood what I needed."
"Were you in a relationship with him?"
A pause.
"For a time."
"While we were married."
"Yes."
I had suspected it from the moment she used the word understood in the dressing room.
Hearing it confirmed didn't produce the reaction I might have expected.
There was no rage.
There was something quieter and colder — the feeling of a picture finally completing itself, every piece snapping into place at once.
"So Marcos Vidal is your brother's business partner, your source of income from Serrano Group, your contact for the leaked documents, and the man you were involved with while married to me."
"When you say it like that—"
"Is any part of what I said incorrect?"
She didn't answer.
"And he has recordings," I said.
"Of my phone calls with my legal team."
"He said he did."
"How?"
She looked up.
"The study.
When you were home between trips.
He had someone install something in your study.
I didn't know about it until he told me, months later."
I thought about my study.
The desk.
The bookshelves.
The phone I used for confidential calls because I believed it was more secure than my mobile.
"When did he tell you about the device?"
"Four months ago."
"And you said nothing."
"I was already in it by then." Her voice was quiet.
Not apologetic.
Just factual.
"There was no clean way out."
Tomás arrived within twenty minutes.
I met him at the front door and gave him the prepaid phone and the folder.
I told him to photograph everything in the folder, secure both items, and have his technical team sweep the study for any listening device before morning.
He looked at the prepaid phone.
At the folder.
At my face.
"Do you need me to make a call?" he said.
He meant Delgado.
"Not yet.
Tomorrow morning."
He nodded and went to work.
I went back to the kitchen.
Isabella had fallen asleep at the table, her bandaged hands folded in front of her, her head resting on her arms.
Rosa had draped a light blanket over her shoulders.
Rosa looked up when I came in.
She started to speak.
"You called Delgado," I said quietly, so as not to wake Isabella.
"Three months ago."
Rosa's eyes filled.
"He said without a formal complaint from you or from Isabella's school, there was nothing he could do.
I didn't know how to reach you.
Beatriz had told the staff not to contact you directly about household matters.
She said you had given that instruction yourself."
"I never gave that instruction."
"I know that now." Rosa pressed her lips together.
"I should have found a way.
I'm sorry."
"You tried," I said.
"That matters."
I sat down across from my sleeping daughter.
Her face in sleep was the face I remembered from when she was a baby — open, unguarded, the careful watchfulness gone.
She looked like herself again.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Tomás.
*Device found.
Study desk lamp.
Removed and secured.
Folder photographed.
Sending to your lawyer tonight.*
I set the phone face-down on the table.
Then another buzz.
This one from a number I didn't have saved.
I opened it.
*You found the device.
That changes the conversation.
Meet me tomorrow.
Alone.
I think you'll want to hear what I have to say before you speak to anyone official.*
I read it twice.
Then I typed back one word.
*Where.*
The reply came in under a minute.
A restaurant in central Marbella.
Noon tomorrow.
I set the phone down.
Rosa was watching me from across the table.
"Is it him?" she said.
"Yes."
She looked at Isabella.
Then back at me.
"What are you going to do?"
I looked at my daughter's bandaged hands resting on the table.
"I'm going to go," I said.
"And I'm going to let him believe he still has something I'm afraid of."
Rosa was quiet for a moment.
"And does he?" she said.
I picked up my phone and forwarded Marcos Vidal's message to Tomás with three words attached.
May you like
*Trace this number.*
"Not anymore," I said.
