Chapter 3 - PAGE FORTY-TWO
Mariana did not sleep.
At seven the next morning, Octavio obtained permission for her counsel to review an inventory of the seized materials.
Page forty-two contained three initials.
E.A.
A.L.
H.S.
Efraín Alvarado.
Arturo Ledesma.
Héctor Salgado.
Beside them were dates and amounts.
The first date was eleven years old.
Arturo had not even worked in hotel finance then.
Mariana stared at the page.
“My father knew Héctor?”
Octavio did not answer quickly enough.
“You knew too.”
“I knew they met.”
“Why?”
“Efraín considered acquiring Salgado’s logistics company.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Then why are there payments?”
Octavio rubbed his forehead.
“I don’t know.”
Mariana hated that answer because she believed it.
Héctor agreed to meet.
He arrived at a bakery in Coyoacán wearing a baseball cap as if disguises worked only in movies.
Mariana almost told him he looked ridiculous.
Then she saw his hands shaking.
“Your husband has been blackmailing me.”
“With what?”
Héctor looked at Octavio.
“Your father paid me to hide an accident.”
Mariana stopped breathing.
Eleven years earlier, an Alvarado hotel renovation site in Puebla had partially collapsed.
Official records showed no deaths.
Héctor said there had been one.
A temporary worker.
Undocumented.
Paid in cash.
The body was removed before inspectors arrived.
Mariana stood.
“No.”
“I drove the truck.”
“No.”
“Your father paid me.”
She walked away from the table.
Outside, traffic moved normally.
People bought coffee.
A dog barked at a bus.
The world had no respect for revelation.
Octavio followed.
“Mariana.”
She turned.
“Did you know someone died?”
“No.”
“Did my father?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop protecting dead men.”
Octavio flinched.
Back inside, Héctor placed a photograph on the table.
A young construction worker stood beside scaffolding.
On the back was a name.
Gabriel Torres.
And beneath it:
Tell his daughter someday.
Mariana looked at Héctor.
“His daughter?”
Héctor swallowed.
May you like
“She works at your hotel.”
