Chapter 5: The Number Rosa Left Behind
I went to my study and locked the door.
The room was exactly as I had left it three months ago.
Same desk, same shelves, same framed survey maps of the Marbella coastline I had bought when I first acquired the villa.
I had always found the room steadying.
Tonight it felt like someone else's space.
I sat down and placed the small phone on the desk in front of me.
My lawyer first.
I called Andrés on his personal number.
He picked up on the third ring.
"You're back early," he said.
"I need you to listen carefully and not ask questions until I'm finished."
I told him what I had seen in the garden.
What Isabella had told me in the kitchen.
The bruise.
The stripped room.
The chore log.
The missing locket.
I read him several entries from the notebook.
He didn't interrupt once.
When I finished, there was a short silence.
"Are you somewhere private?" he asked.
"Locked study."
"Good.
Don't move anything.
Don't confront her again tonight.
I'm going to call a colleague who handles family law — she's the best in Andalusia and she owes me a favor.
I want her on this before morning."
"There's something else." I told him about the phone.
About the saved contact.
About what Beatriz had said in the hallway — *whatever she left behind* — and what it told me she already knew.
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"Power the phone on and call that number," Andrés said.
"Do it now, while I'm on the line.
Put me on hold.
I want to know who answers."
I switched him to hold and picked up Rosa's phone.
One contact.
*Someone who will listen.*
I pressed call.
It rang four times.
I was preparing for voicemail when a woman answered.
"Rosa?" The voice was older.
Careful.
"Is that you?"
"No," I said.
"My name is Marcos Villanueva.
Rosa left this phone for my daughter.
I'm calling the number she saved."
A long pause.
"Mr.
Villanueva." The woman's voice changed.
Not warmer exactly.
More deliberate.
"I wondered how long it would take."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Elena Sousa.
I was Beatriz's housekeeper for three years.
Before Rosa.
Before you." She paused again.
"Before the man before you."
The room felt different after she said that.
"There was someone before me."
"A businessman in Lisbon.
Wealthy.
A widower.
He had a son from his first marriage, eleven years old." Elena's voice was steady, as if she had rehearsed this, or simply lived with it long enough that it no longer required effort.
"Beatriz married him in 2019.
She was gone by 2021.
She left with a settlement that his lawyers are still disputing."
"And the boy?"
"He's fine now.
He lives with his grandparents." A pause.
"He wasn't fine while she was there."
My hand was tight around the phone.
"What happened to him?"
"The same things that are happening to your daughter." Elena's voice didn't waver.
"Isolation.
Removal of the people who cared for him.
Tasks designed to exhaust and humiliate.
And fear — above everything else, fear — that his father wouldn't believe him."
I stood up from the desk without deciding to.
"Do you have documentation?"
"I kept records from the day I started to understand what I was seeing.
I kept them because I knew no one would believe a housekeeper without proof." She paused.
"I've been waiting for someone to call this number for eight months.
Rosa found me through a domestic workers' network.
She told me about Isabella.
She said she was afraid of what would happen after she was gone."
"I need everything you have."
"I know." Elena was quiet for a moment.
"Mr.
Villanueva — how is the girl?"
I looked at the locked door of my study.
Above me, somewhere in the ceiling, was Isabella's room.
"She's safe," I said.
"She's locked in her room and I'm right below her."
"Good." A breath.
"Don't let Beatriz speak to her alone tonight.
Not for any reason."
"I won't."
"I'll send everything to whatever address you give me.
Tonight, if you want it."
I gave her Andrés's email.
I told her he was my lawyer and that she could speak to him directly.
She wrote it down without rushing.
Before I ended the call, she said one more thing.
"The locket," she said.
"If Beatriz took something that belonged to Isabella's mother — check the safe in the master bedroom.
She has a habit of keeping things she considers leverage."
I thanked her and hung up.
I switched back to Andrés.
"Did you hear any of that?" I asked.
"Enough," he said.
"I'm calling my colleague right now.
Marcos — don't go near that safe tonight.
Don't touch anything in the master bedroom.
If the locket is there, we retrieve it the right way."
"Understood."
"Get some sleep if you can.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
I ended the call and sat in the silence of my study.
Through the floor above me, I heard a small sound.
A creak of weight shifting on a bed.
Isabella, still awake.
I picked up my personal phone and sent her a message on the app we used when I was traveling.
*Still here.
Right below you.
You're safe.*
Three seconds later, a single reply appeared.
*I know, Dad.*
I set the phone down.
Then I opened the desk drawer, took out a fresh legal pad, and began writing down everything I remembered from the moment I had stepped through the garden gate.
Downstairs, I heard Beatriz's heels cross the kitchen floor one more time.
Then the sound of the terrace door opening.
Then her voice, low and quick, speaking into her phone.
I couldn't hear the words.
May you like
But I heard the urgency in them.
She was calling someone.
