Chapter 3: What Marianne Knew
Rose sat in the plastic chair beside the hospital window, her canvas bag on her lap, both hands wrapped around it like she was afraid someone would take it.
I pulled a chair close and sat facing her.
"Tell me everything."
"Marianne called me eleven days ago first," Rose said.
"She was calm.
Too calm.
She said she had found something at the company — documents she wasn't supposed to see.
She didn't tell me what they were.
She said she needed more time to be sure."
"And the night before she collapsed?"
Rose's jaw tightened.
"She called me at eleven-thirty.
She wasn't calm that time." She reached into the canvas bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper — a printed screenshot of a text message.
"She sent me this before the call ended."
I took the paper.
The screenshot showed a message from Marianne's phone to Rose's number, sent at 11:47 p.m.:
*If something happens to me, find Alexander.
Tell him to look at the Delgado account.
Tell him to ask Patricia who authorized the transfers.
Tell him to find the second will before she does.*
My hands were not steady when I set the paper down.
"She said Patricia had been watching her for weeks," Rose continued.
"Following her movements inside the company.
Marianne said she had made a copy of the documents and hidden them.
She wouldn't tell me where.
She said the less I knew, the safer I would be."
Sophia appeared in the doorway.
She had been listening.
"Dad.
What's the Delgado account?"
"It's a supplier account," I said slowly.
"It's been on the books for three years."
"Has it always been there?"
I looked at her.
"I assumed so."
Sophia crossed her arms.
"Because Patricia runs purchasing."
The three of us sat with that for a moment.
My phone buzzed.
Ramon again.
I answered.
"I'm at the office," Ramon said.
His voice was tight.
"Alexander, Patricia's assistant just cleared her desk.
Everything.
Computer, personal files, the cabinet behind her chair.
She told the assistant Patricia called and said she wouldn't be coming back."
"She's running."
"She's already gone.
But listen — I found something she missed." A pause.
"There's a folder in the shared drive.
It's labeled with a supplier code, not a name.
I almost didn't open it.
Alexander, it goes back five years.
The transfers are enormous."
"How enormous?"
Ramon said the number quietly.
I stood up from the chair.
"Don't touch it," I said.
"Don't move anything.
Call our attorney right now.
Not the company attorney — mine personally.
Victor Salinas.
Tell him I need him at the hospital in one hour."
"Already dialing," Ramon said.
I ended the call and looked at Rose.
She was watching me with the steady, careful eyes of a woman who had been waiting a long time to be useful to her daughter.
"You said Marianne hid the documents," I said.
"Did she give you any hint at all?"
Rose was quiet for a moment.
Then she reached back into the canvas bag and placed a small brass key on the chair between us.
"She mailed this to me four days ago.
No note.
Just the key."
It was a safety deposit key.
The number stamped on it was 114.
Sophia picked it up carefully.
She turned it over.
On the back, someone had written two letters in black marker: *RC.*
"RC," Sophia said.
"What bank has the initials RC?"
I already knew.
My stomach dropped before the words reached my mouth.
"Río Claro Savings," I said.
"It's three blocks from our house.
Marianne walked past it every morning."
Sophia closed her fingers around the key.
"Then that's where we go."
I nodded.
But as I stood, the door to the corridor opened and a nurse stepped in.
"Mr.
Cardenas?
May you like
Your wife is awake.
She's asking for you."
