Chapter 9: What Renata Was Holding
I sent the message through an intermediary — a woman named Sofía who had worked as Renata's personal assistant before the marriage and still had her private number.
The message was simple: *I'm not your enemy.
I think you're in danger.
I'd like to talk.
Just the two of us.*
Renata's reply came four hours later.
*Tomorrow.
10am.
The address below.
Come alone.*
The address was a small apartment in Condesa — not the Alcázar family home, not a hotel.
Somewhere private.
Somewhere she had chosen herself.
That told me something.
She opened the door before I knocked.
She had changed out of the wedding clothes — she was wearing a loose gray dress now, her hair down, no makeup.
She looked younger than she had in the ballroom.
She also looked exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the pregnancy.
She stepped back to let me in without speaking.
The apartment was small and carefully arranged.
A bookshelf.
A plant on the windowsill.
A child's stuffed rabbit on the sofa — old, worn at the ears, the kind of thing kept from childhood.
She sat across from me and folded her hands over her stomach.
"You know," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"I know some of it."
"How much?"
"Rodrigo was talking to investigators before he died.
He had documents.
He gave you something to keep safe." I watched her face.
"And the people connected to those documents are not people who forgive that kind of thing."
She was very still.
"Santiago told me I was protected," she said.
"He told me as long as I stayed close to the family and didn't talk to anyone, nothing would happen to me."
"Santiago needed you close because you have something he needs to manage."
"I know that." Her voice was quiet.
"I've known that for a while." She looked at her hands.
"I loved Rodrigo.
I want you to know that.
Whatever else happened — whatever you think of me — I loved him."
"I believe you."
"He told me three weeks before he died that he was going to do something that might make things difficult for a while.
He said he needed me to hold something for him.
He said if anything happened to him, I should wait.
He said I'd know when the right moment came."
"What did he give you?"
She stood up slowly and went to the bookshelf.
She moved three books and reached behind them.
She came back with a small sealed envelope — the kind used for legal documents, with a notary stamp on the seal.
She held it out.
"He said to give it to someone who had more to lose from the truth staying hidden than from it coming out." She met my eyes.
"I think that's you."
I took the envelope.
"Renata.
I need to tell you something."
"I know what you're going to say."
"The investigators don't think it was a heart attack."
She closed her eyes.
"I know," she said.
Very quietly.
"I've known since the night he died.
The way it happened — he was fine in the morning.
He was fine at lunch.
He called me at three o'clock and said he was going to meet someone.
He didn't tell me who." Her voice didn't break, but it thinned.
"By seven he was gone."
"Do you know who he met?"
"No.
But I know Santiago got a phone call at six-fifteen that night.
I heard him in the next room.
I heard him say — " She stopped.
"He said, 'Is it done?' And then he said, 'Good.' And then he hung up."
The room was very quiet.
"Did you tell anyone?"
"Who was I going to tell?
His father?
The police that Ernesto has known for thirty years?" She pressed her hand flat against her stomach.
"I was pregnant.
I was alone.
I did what Rodrigo told me to do.
I waited."
I looked at the envelope in my hands.
"There's a federal investigator named Claudia Bernal," I said.
"She's been building this case for over a year.
She's the right person."
"Will she protect me?"
"She wants to.
She needs what's in here to do it properly."
Renata looked at the envelope for a long moment.
"Rodrigo used to say that the truth has a weight to it," she said.
"That you can carry it or it carries you, but it never just disappears." She looked up.
"He was right about that."
"Yes," I said.
"He was."
I stood to leave.
At the door, she stopped me.
"Valeria."
I turned.
"I'm sorry.
For what I said in the ballroom.
You were never just a transaction to me.
That was — I was scared and I was performing for people who were watching." Her jaw tightened.
"I'm tired of performing."
May you like
"So am I," I said.
I walked out into the Condesa morning with Rodrigo Alcázar's documents in my hand and called Inspectora Bernal before I reached the corner.
