Chapter 14 - What the Dead Left Behind
DNA confirmation took two days.
The woman was Lucía Serrano.
Camila did not cry when we told her.
She simply sat down.
Then she asked whether she could see her mother.
The investigators refused until the examination was complete.
Camila nodded.
No argument.
No anger.
Just silence.
I sat beside her.
Neither of us spoke.
I still hated what she had done to me.
But grief has strange borders.
Sometimes it allows two enemies to sit on the same bench without pretending they are friends.
The second body was confirmed as Mateo Salazar.
Ricardo’s older brother.
Official records said Mateo had jumped from a hotel balcony in Monterrey.
Apparently, another body had been cremated under his name.
Someone had manufactured an entire death.
That required power.
Money.
Coordination.
My mother’s letter had warned about people who treated lives like pieces on a board.
Now I understood.
The buried car contained more.
A damaged leather briefcase.
Documents sealed in plastic.
A cassette recorder.
And three photographs.
One showed Ricardo.
Much younger.
Standing beside his brother.
Another showed Mariana Cruz.
At least, the woman Beatriz identified as Mariana.
The third photograph changed everything.
Mariana stood beside a man at a political fundraiser.
My father recognized him.
So did Beatriz.
I did not.
“Who is that?”
Dad’s face hardened.
“Héctor Montoya.”
The name meant little to me.
It meant everything to him.
“He was Vanguardia’s general counsel.”
“When?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
“What happened to him?”
“He left the company shortly after Isabel died.”
“Where is he now?”
Dad stared at the photograph.
“Chairman of Montoya Capital.”
I knew that name.
Everyone in business did.
Montoya Capital managed tens of billions of dollars across Latin America.
Infrastructure.
Energy.
Real estate.
Private credit.
A competitor.
And recently, one of the largest buyers of distressed development debt in Mexico.
I looked at Alejandro.
He understood too.
“Montoya Capital bought some of our debt last year.”
Beatriz turned sharply.
“How much?”
“About twelve percent.”
Dad’s expression darkened.
“Through which vehicle?”
Alejandro pulled out his phone.
“I’ll check.”
Three minutes later, we had the answer.
The debt had been purchased through a subsidiary.
MC Infrastructure Opportunities.
M.C.
The initials.
I stared at the document.
“Mariana Cruz.”
“Montoya Capital.”
“Same initials.”
Dad nodded.
“Maybe deliberately.”
Alejandro looked at the photograph.
“Is Mariana connected to Héctor?”
Gabriel entered.
“We ran facial recognition.”
“And?”
“The woman calling herself Mariana Cruz appeared under another name in corporate records.”
“What name?”
“Mariana Montoya.”
My skin tightened.
“His wife?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at my father.
“His sister.”
There it was.
M.C.
Mariana Cruz.
Mariana Montoya.
The woman who manipulated Beatriz.
The woman my mother feared.
The sister of Vanguardia’s former general counsel.
“She’s alive?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded.
“Seventy-one.”
“Where?”
“Madrid.”
“When did she leave Mexico?”
“Three days after your mother’s funeral.”
Of course.
“Can we prove she ordered the murder?”
“Not yet.”
The recovered cassette might.
Forensic technicians restored part of it that evening.
We gathered in my father’s study.
The recording began with my mother’s voice.
I had forgotten how warm it sounded.
“Lucía, start from the beginning.”
Then Lucía.
“They’re moving money through infrastructure subcontractors.”
“Who?”
“Héctor Montoya approves the legal structures.”
“Ricardo’s brother processes some transfers.”
“Does Ricardo know?”
“I think so.”
My mother asked another question.
“And Mariana?”
A long pause.
“She controls the political side.”
“What does that mean?”
“She pays people.”
“Regulators.”
“Procurement officers.”
“Police.”
The recording crackled.
Then Federico’s voice.
“We take this directly to federal prosecutors.”
Lucía answered.
“No.”
“They have people there too.”
My mother spoke.
“Then we make copies.”
The audio skipped.
When it resumed, a man was shouting.
Not Federico.
Not Dad.
Mateo Salazar.
“You don’t understand.”
“If Mariana finds out we copied the ledger, she’ll kill all of us.”
Then my mother said the sentence that silenced the room.
“She already knows.”
The recording ended.
Dad pressed both hands against the table.
My mother had known.
She had been hunted.
And she had still continued.
Another audio fragment existed.
Technicians restored it overnight.
At six the next morning, Gabriel called me into the study.
“You should hear this before your father.”
“Why?”
His face told me I would not like the answer.
He played the tape.
A man’s voice.
Héctor Montoya.
“We have a problem.”
Then Ricardo.
Young.
Frightened.
“My brother wants out.”
“He doesn’t get out.”
“What about Isabel?”
A pause.
Then Héctor said.
“Mariana is handling the car.”
My blood turned cold.
Ricardo whispered.
“And Arturo?”
“We make sure he spends the rest of his life wondering whether Federico betrayed him.”
The recording continued.
Then another voice entered.
A voice I recognized.
My father.
But what he said made no sense.
“Do whatever you need to do.”
I stared at Gabriel.
“No.”
He stopped the recording.
My hands shook.
“That was Dad.”
“Yes.”
“He told them to do whatever they needed.”
“That is what it sounds like.”
“No.”
I replayed it.
Same voice.
Same words.
My father had spent twenty-two years telling me he did not know who killed my mother.
Now a recording placed his voice in the conspiracy.
And suddenly Camila’s warning returned.
May you like
YOUR FATHER DOES TOO.
For the first time in my life, I wondered whether I had been wrong about the one person I still trusted completely.
