Chapter 6: What Marcos Didn't Know
The call came at eleven forty-seven.
Not to me.
To Alejandro's contact at the financial crimes unit in Madrid, who had been monitoring Marcos Reyes's accounts since eight that morning under an emergency court order obtained on the basis of the transfer records.
Alejandro stepped out of the office to take the update.
When he came back in, he sat down and placed both hands flat on the desk.
"Reyes made three outgoing transfers in the last hour," he said.
"He's moving the money."
"Can they freeze it?"
"Already done.
The order went through twelve minutes ago." He paused.
"He also booked a flight.
Lisbon.
Departing at three."
"He's running."
"He was going to run." Alejandro looked at his watch.
"The financial crimes unit will be at his office in Madrid within the hour.
He won't make that flight."
I stood at the window.
The garden was bright in the late morning sun.
Rosario was down there, pulling weeds near the hedge, moving slowly and carefully the way she always did.
She had been with the villa for six years.
She had been here every day Beatriz had put Isabella to work in that garden.
"Rosario," I said.
Alejandro looked up.
"I need to speak with her." I turned from the window.
"She was here.
She saw what was happening.
I need to know what she knows."
"She may be reluctant to speak against Beatriz."
"She may be," I said.
"But she brought Isabella inside last night.
She wrapped her hands.
She didn't have to do that."
I found Rosario in the garden twenty minutes later.
She straightened when she saw me coming and pressed her hands together in front of her, the way she did when she was uncertain.
"Señor Navarro."
"Sit down, Rosario.
Please."
We sat on the low stone bench near the lemon trees.
She kept her eyes on the ground.
"I need to ask you some things," I said.
"And I need you to know that whatever you tell me, your position here is completely safe.
You have nothing to fear from me."
She looked up.
Her eyes were red at the edges.
She had been crying, or close to it.
"I wanted to call you," she said.
"Many times.
I had your number in my phone.
I looked at it." She stopped.
"She told me if I contacted you she would tell immigration that I had been working without the correct documentation.
It wasn't true.
My papers are all correct.
But I didn't know if you would believe me over her."
"I believe you."
She nodded slowly.
"It started about two weeks after you left.
Small things at first.
Isabella making her own bed, washing her plate.
I thought — children should learn these things.
I didn't say anything." Her hands tightened in her lap.
"Then it became more.
The bathroom.
The floors.
The rubbish every day.
And when Isabella was slow, or when she made a mistake, Beatriz would—" She stopped.
"Tell me."
"She would make her stand in the hallway.
For an hour sometimes.
No sitting.
No moving.
She called it thinking time." Rosario's voice was very controlled.
"Once, Isabella dropped a glass.
An accident.
Beatriz made her clean it up with her bare hands and told her that careless children didn't deserve gloves."
I said nothing.
"I gave her gloves from the kitchen cupboard afterward," Rosario said.
"Beatriz didn't see.
Isabella thanked me like I had given her something extraordinary." She looked at me.
"She was eight years old.
She thanked me for a pair of rubber gloves."
I looked at the dumpsters at the far end of the garden.
"The man who visited," I said.
"Marcos Reyes."
Rosario's expression shifted.
"He came four times.
Always when you were away and I had been given the day off." She paused.
"The last time, I came back early.
I had forgotten my phone.
They were in your office.
The door was not fully closed." She stopped.
"What did you hear?"
"He was telling her the transfers were almost complete.
That once the money was clear, they could move on the next stage." She looked at me steadily.
"He said: once the old man is out of the picture, the rest is simple."
The lemon trees were very still.
"Out of the picture," I repeated.
"Those were his words."
I sat with that for a moment.
Then I stood up.
"Rosario.
I need you to write down everything you just told me.
Every detail.
Dates if you remember them.
I'm going to ask Alejandro to take your statement formally.
Is that all right?"
"Yes." She stood as well.
"Señor Navarro." She hesitated.
"Isabella asked me this morning if you were going to leave again soon."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her I didn't know." She looked at me.
"What should I have told her?"
"Tell her no," I said.
"Tell her I'm not going anywhere."
I walked back to the villa.
My phone was already ringing before I reached the door.
It was Alejandro.
"They have Reyes," he said.
"He was in his car.
They stopped him four blocks from the airport."
"Good."
"There's something else." A pause.
"He had a folder with him.
Physical documents.
Our forensic accountant is looking at them now, but Alejandro — it's not just the subsidiaries.
He had draft paperwork.
A proposed restructuring of the entire company.
With Beatriz listed as majority shareholder."
I stopped walking.
"She was going to take the company," Alejandro said.
"Not just the money.
The whole thing."
I stood in the doorway of the villa and looked back at the garden.
At the dumpsters.
At the stone where the bag had torn open and Isabella had dropped to her knees in the garbage, scooping it up with her bare hands because she was terrified of what would happen if she didn't.
Three months.
While I built a hotel in Dubai, Beatriz had been dismantling everything I had built in Spain.
May you like
And she had used my daughter to keep the house quiet while she did it.
"I'll be there in an hour," I said.
