Chapter 6: The Call We Weren't Ready For
Alejandro's hand hovered over the phone.
Three rings.
Four.
"Answer it," I said.
"Mariana—"
"Answer it.
If you don't, he'll know something is wrong."
Alejandro picked up.
He kept his voice even, the way he always did in business — controlled, unreadable, giving nothing away.
"Reyes."
"Alejandro." The voice on the other end was low and unhurried.
"It's Dario Cutter.
I hope I'm not calling too early."
"Not at all.
What can I do for you?"
"I wanted to reach out personally about the Morrison Street bid.
I think there's room for us to work together rather than compete.
Maybe grab coffee this week, talk through some numbers."
"I appreciate that," Alejandro said.
"Let me check my schedule and get back to you."
"Of course.
No rush." A pause.
"I also heard you've been doing some volunteer work lately.
Soup kitchens, that kind of thing."
The pause that followed was less than a second.
But I felt it.
"Word gets around," Alejandro said.
"It does in this city." Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Anyway.
I'll let you go.
We'll talk soon."
The call ended.
Alejandro set the phone down on the table very slowly.
"He knows," I said.
"He suspects." Alejandro's eyes were sharp.
"He doesn't know what we have yet.
But he's watching."
Lucy had not moved.
She was staring at the phone as though the voice were still coming out of it.
"He called to see how you'd react," she said quietly.
"Yes."
"Which means he already knows I'm here."
Alejandro didn't answer, and his silence was its own answer.
I stood up.
"Then we don't have as much time as we thought."
We called our attorney, a woman named Grace Okonkwo, who had handled Alejandro's corporate contracts for eleven years and who listened to everything without interrupting.
When Alejandro finished, there was a brief silence on the line.
"I need to see the documents today," Grace said.
"All of them.
Don't make copies on any device connected to your home network.
Bring the originals."
"We'll come to your office this morning," Alejandro said.
"And the woman — your mother-in-law," Grace said.
"She needs to come too.
Her testimony is the center of this."
I looked at Lucy across the table.
"She'll be there," I said.
Grace's office was on the twenty-third floor of a building on Michigan Avenue.
She met us in the lobby herself, which she had never done in eleven years of working with Alejandro.
She shook his hand, then turned to me, then turned to Lucy and held her gaze for a moment.
"Mrs.
Vasquez," she said.
Lucy blinked.
It was the first time in twenty years anyone had called her by her real name.
Her eyes filled, but she didn't look away.
"Yes," she said.
"That's me."
In the conference room, Grace spread the documents across the table and read everything twice without speaking.
Then she sat back and folded her hands.
"The hospital intake form establishes identity and timeline," she said.
"The letter from Alejandro's father is an admission — not a legal confession, but enough to establish prior knowledge.
And your testimony," she said to Lucy, "combined with a positive photo identification of Cutter, gives us the foundation for a criminal referral."
"How strong is it?" I asked.
"Strong enough that I'm calling the State's Attorney's office this afternoon." Grace looked at me directly.
"But Mariana, I need you to understand something.
When we file this, Cutter will know immediately.
And men like Cutter, when they feel cornered—"
"He already called this morning," Alejandro said.
May you like
Grace's expression didn't change, but she reached for her pen.
"Tell me exactly what he said."
