Chapter 4: Her First Words
The room smelled of antiseptic and recycled air.
Marianne was propped against two pillows, an IV line taped to the back of her left hand.
Her face was pale and drawn, her dark hair loose against the pillow.
But her eyes were open.
Focused.
And the moment I walked through the door, they locked onto mine with an urgency that told me she had not woken up confused.
She had woken up afraid.
"Alexander." Her voice was rough, barely above a whisper.
I crossed the room and took her hand.
"I'm here."
"The funeral—" She stopped.
Swallowed.
"Did they—"
"No.
You're alive.
You're in the hospital.
You've been here for four hours."
Her eyes closed briefly.
When they opened again, the fear was still there.
"Patricia."
"I know."
"She knows I found it.
She knows." Marianne's fingers tightened around mine.
"Alexander, you have to listen to me.
There isn't much time.
She won't stop — not now that she knows I'm alive."
"Marianne, the doctor said you need to rest—"
"No." The word came out sharp.
She pushed herself up slightly against the pillows.
"Listen to me.
The Delgado account is fake.
The supplier doesn't exist.
Patricia created it four years ago and has been routing company funds through it ever since.
I found the incorporation documents.
The account is registered to a shell company in Panama, and the sole director—" She stopped.
Looked at me.
"It's not Patricia."
I went still.
"Then who?"
Marianne's gaze moved past me to the doorway.
My mother, Eleanor, was standing there.
She had come in silently.
She was holding her coat over one arm, her rosary — retrieved from the mud, apparently — wrapped around her other hand.
Her expression was unreadable.
"Mom," I said carefully.
Eleanor looked at Marianne.
Something passed between them — not warmth.
Recognition.
The kind between two people who have been circling each other for a long time.
"You should be resting," Eleanor said.
"I've been resting for four hours inside a casket," Marianne said.
"I think I've had enough."
Eleanor's jaw tightened.
She looked at me.
"Alexander, your wife has been through a trauma.
Whatever she's telling you right now—"
"The shell company," I said.
"The one in Panama.
Is your name on it?"
The silence lasted four seconds.
I counted them.
"I don't know what she's been telling you," Eleanor said.
"But Marianne has always had a talent for turning this family against each other.
Even now, even after everything—"
"Mom." My voice came out flat.
"Answer the question."
Eleanor straightened.
She set her coat over the chair near the door.
She unwrapped the rosary from her hand and placed it in her coat pocket.
Then she looked at me with an expression I had never seen on her face before — not guilt, not fear.
Calculation.
"Your father built that company," she said.
"He built it for forty years.
And then he decided to leave the controlling share to Marianne." She said the name like it tasted wrong.
"A woman who had been in this family for twenty-two years.
Over his own son.
Over me.
Over your brother." She paused.
"I simply made a correction."
Marianne's hand had gone rigid in mine.
"A correction," I repeated.
"The second will was a mistake.
Your father was not well when he wrote it.
Patricia helped me keep it from becoming a problem.
That is all."
"That is all," I said again, very quietly.
"Alexander—"
"You helped Patricia dr*g my wife." The words came out one at a time.
"You stood at that grave and told me to cover her with dirt and walk away."
Eleanor's chin lifted.
"I told you what needed to happen."
Sophia appeared in the doorway behind her grandmother.
She had heard everything.
Her face had gone the color of paper.
Eleanor turned and saw her granddaughter standing there.
For the first time, something flickered across her face.
Not remorse.
Inconvenience.
"Sophia," she said.
"This is complicated.
When you're older—"
"I'm twenty-three," Sophia said.
Her voice was very steady.
"And I have a phone.
And I've been recording since the hallway."
Eleanor looked at the phone in Sophia's hand.
The red recording light was on.
She looked back at me.
May you like
"Call Victor," I said to Sophia.
"Right now."
