Chapter 15 - Lucia
I told myself Mercedes had lied.
Lucia was dead.
I had identified her belongings.
I had attended the cremation.
I had buried her ashes.
But I had never seen her body.
The crash had caused a fire.
Identification had relied partly on dental records.
Carmen reopened the case.
The original dental comparison had been signed by a forensic consultant.
That consultant had received money from one of Samuel’s shell companies.
My certainty collapsed.
Rafael woke in the hospital.
When I asked him whether Lucia could be alive, he looked away.
That was enough.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You let me bury an empty box?”
“I was trying to find her.”
“For five years?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Mercedes moved people through private clinics.”
“Why keep Lucia alive?”
“Because Lucia knew account keys.”
The financial network used an encryption structure she had helped design while consulting for her father’s investment office.
Mercedes needed access.
Lucia had refused.
Rafael believed she had been held somewhere under another identity.
Then a new message arrived.
A video.
A woman sat in a white room.
Her hair was shorter.
Her face thinner.
But I knew her.
Lucia.
She looked directly into the camera.
“Gabriel.”
My knees gave way.
I sat.
“If you are seeing this, they finally decided I am useful again.”
Isabella stood beside me.
She covered her mouth.
“Mom?”
Lucia continued.
“Do not trade Isabella for me.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Do not believe anything Mercedes promises.”
The video ended.
Metadata placed the recording less than twenty-four hours old.
Lucia was alive.
The entire case changed.
Mercedes was no longer merely a financial criminal.
She was connected to kidnapping, unlawful confinement, attempted murder, and years of conspiracy.
Beatriz gave police one possible location.
A private rehabilitation clinic in the mountains north of Granada.
Mercedes’s foundation funded it.
Carmen organized a raid with national police.
I was ordered to remain behind.
I hated every second.
At 4:42 a.m., Carmen called.
“We found the clinic.”
My heart pounded.
“And?”
“Several patients were held under false identities.”
“Lucia?”
A pause.
“She was there.”
I stopped breathing.
“Was?”
“Her room is empty.”
Security footage showed a helicopter leaving forty minutes before the raid.
Mercedes had moved her.
Again.
But the clinic staff gave police something valuable.
A destination code.
M.A.-7.
Mateo recognized it.
Mercedes owned seven properties registered through Alarcón Maritime.
Property seven was an island villa off Mallorca.
Police prepared another operation.
Before they could move, Mercedes appeared live on television.
She sat beside her attorneys.
She denied everything.
Then she accused me of kidnapping Beatriz and fabricating evidence to seize Lucia’s trust.
Reporters shouted questions.
Mercedes looked directly into the camera.
“I am deeply concerned for Isabella Serrano’s safety.”
I almost threw the remote through the screen.
Then Mercedes smiled.
“And I invite Gabriel to produce Lucia if he claims she is alive.”
She knew we had the video.
She knew we did not have Lucia.
Lucia's video was authenticated by three independent experts.
The scar near her left eyebrow matched childhood photographs.
Her voice pattern matched archived recordings.
A genetic sample recovered at the clinic later confirmed what my heart already knew.
The dead had not returned.
She had never been dead at all.
She was daring us.
Ten minutes later, the video vanished from our evidence server.
Someone had hacked the system.
But they made one mistake.
The deletion triggered an off-site forensic copy.
And attached to the intrusion was an IP address.
Mallorca.
May you like
Mercedes had just told us exactly where she was.
