Chapter 9 - Who Called Elena
Lucy’s memory of the meeting was incomplete.
She remembered Isabella calling.
She remembered bringing copies of inspection reports.
She remembered being told someone from the city would meet them.
Not Rafael.
Not Hale.
Not Samuel.
Someone else.
“Who?”
Lucy couldn’t retrieve the face.
Dr. Carter warned against forcing it.
So they rebuilt the night through records.
Telephone logs.
Old employee schedules.
City-access cards.
One call reached Elena’s apartment at 9:14 p.m.
Origin:
Municipal engineering office.
User extension:
Margaret Blake.
Mariana froze.
Margaret Blake had been Elena’s supervisor.
She died ten years earlier.
Natural causes.
Or supposedly.
Rachel Monroe found Margaret’s personnel file.
She had approved inspection waivers for several Rafael projects.
But bank records showed no bribes.
Instead, payments had gone to her husband.
Mariana frowned.
“Maybe Rafael controlled her.”
Samuel said quietly:
“Or she controlled him.”
Everyone looked at him.
Rafael was not the original architect of the bribery network.
He was one contractor among several.
Margaret coordinated which inspectors were paid.
Which violations disappeared.
Which companies received permits.
Rafael profited.
Then tried expanding independently.
Isabella discovered his records.
Elena found Margaret’s involvement.
Margaret panicked.
She summoned Elena to the construction site, claiming she would turn everything over.
Instead, Victor Hale arrived.
Then Rafael’s people.
The meeting became a trap.
Mariana felt an important shift.
Rafael was guilty.
But not necessarily the mastermind.
Again, the story widened without excusing anyone.
Then Lucy remembered a perfume.
Lavender.
She began shaking.
“Margaret was there.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“She told Rafael to take Isabella.”
Mariana’s throat tightened.
“And you?”
Lucy looked down.
“She said I knew too much.”
Then something stranger.
“She told him not to kill me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucy pressed the locket against her chest.
Then whispered:
“She knew my husband.”
Mariana froze.
“You were married?”
“I think so.”
That changed everything.
Mariana had grown up believing her father, David Ruiz, died when she was six.
Elena supposedly became a widow.
But what if her father connected to this?
“Who was my father?”
Lucy stared at the locket.
Then:
“Not David.”
Mariana’s heart stopped.
“What?”
Lucy began crying.
“David raised you.”
“But—”
“He wasn’t your biological father.”
Mariana felt the room tilt.
“Who was?”
Lucy looked toward the old city photograph of Margaret Blake.
Then at Alejandro.
“I don’t remember.”
But Samuel did.
He looked suddenly horrified.
“Elena…”
Everyone turned.
Samuel whispered:
“Rafael told me once that Mariana belonged to someone powerful.”
Mariana stared.
“Who?”
Samuel swallowed.
“He called you ‘Blake’s insurance policy.’”
Margaret Blake.
Mariana’s supposed family connection was not simply through Elena.
Margaret might have hidden a far more personal secret.
Then Rachel Monroe received a genealogy match from Mariana’s DNA.
A paternal relative.
First-cousin range.
Surname:
Hale.
Victor Hale’s family.
Mariana stared at Alejandro.
The attorney who appeared at the construction site.
The man who fought Elena for the records.
Could Victor Hale have been Mariana’s biological father?
Before anyone could process it, the mansion alarms sounded.
Security reported a vehicle at the back gate.
Inside sat Claire Bennett.
Isabella.
May you like
Alive.
And unconscious.
