Chapter 4 - MY DAUGHTER'S FATHER
Renata learned who I had been from me.
That mattered.
It did not help as much as I wanted it to.
She was sitting upright when I entered her room the next afternoon.
The swelling had gone down enough that I could see the color of one eye.
A speech therapist had given her a tablet with a text-to-voice app.
Renata typed before I reached the chair.
Detective Park told me you need to explain something.
The machine read the sentence in a cheerful female voice.
I hated it immediately.
"I do."
She waited.
"Before you were born, I ran businesses that broke laws."
Renata typed.
What kind of laws?
"Customs. Banking. Extortion. Bribery."
Her eyes did not move.
"I didn't sell drugs."
The tablet spoke.
Do you want a medal?
I almost smiled.
Almost.
"No."
She typed again.
Did you hurt people?
I could have said I never killed anyone with my own hands.
That would have been technically true and morally useless.
"Yes."
Her fingers stopped above the screen.
"I frightened people. I ruined businesses. I ordered beatings. I paid officials. I made problems disappear."
Her breathing quickened.
"I never hurt a child."
The tablet answered immediately.
That doesn't make the rest better.
"I know."
You never told me.
"No."
Mom knew?
"Yes."
Renata turned her face toward the window.
That hurt more than if she had screamed.
I let the silence stay.
Finally, the tablet spoke.
Was Salgado even your name?
"It is now."
She looked back at me.
"I was born Daniel Serrano."
Another long pause.
The tablet spoke.
So Daniel Salgado is fake.
"No."
Her eyebrows moved.
"He's the man who raised you."
The answer sounded better in my head.
Renata typed.
You mean the man who lied to me every day.
I looked down.
"Yes."
She began typing harder.
Were the Sunday pancakes fake too?
"No."
The first camping trip?
"No."
Mom loving you?
That one took air out of me.
"No."
Renata's hand shook.
The tablet sat silent.
"You can hate me," I said.
She typed.
Don't tell me what I can do.
"Fair."
That earned the smallest flicker in her eye.
Then she typed another sentence.
I was investigating Mom.
I looked up.
"What?"
Not her. Her crash.
"Since when?"
Six months.
"Why?"
Renata reached toward the bedside drawer.
I opened it for her.
Inside was a photocopy of an old insurance settlement.
She pointed to one line.
The vehicle identification number listed for Elena's car had one digit wrong.
"A typo."
Renata typed.
That's what I thought.
She swiped to a photo.
The police impound record listed the same wrong VIN.
Then a junkyard disposal form.
Same wrong VIN.
"Three documents."
Renata nodded.
Then she opened another image.
A vehicle with the correct VIN had been registered in New Jersey three months after Elena died.
My heart started beating differently.
"You're saying the car they destroyed wasn't your mother's car."
Renata typed.
I don't know.
"Who helped you find this?"
She hesitated.
"Renata."
The tablet answered.
A professor.
"Name?"
No.
"Why not?"
Because I don't know if I can trust you yet.
I sat back.
There was the knife.
Not that she was afraid of me.
That would have been easier.
She was thinking.
Evaluating.
Doing exactly what I had raised her to do.
"Okay."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You don't have to tell me."
She typed.
You're not going to push?
"I want to."
That got another tiny flicker.
"But no."
Renata looked at the tablet for a long time.
Then she typed slowly.
The three boys found out I had the key.
"How?"
I asked Emmett about his family's foundation.
"Why Emmett?"
He was in my ethics seminar.
"And?"
He joked that his family donated enough money to make rules optional.
"That sounds charming."
Her eye almost smiled.
Then it disappeared.
He invited me to a party. Santiago and Maurice were there. I asked about Marcus Vale.
"You knew Marcus's name?"
Mom's old notes.
"What happened?"
They laughed at first.
Renata stopped typing.
Her hand tightened around the tablet.
I stood.
"We can stop."
She shook her head.
They took my backpack.
"Who?"
Santiago.
Maurice locked the door.
My stomach turned.
Emmett kept saying give it back.
"Did he help you?"
No.
That single word mattered.
He just didn't want it to get bad.
Renata looked at me.
That is not the same thing.
"No. It isn't."
She typed again.
Santiago said my mother should have left buried things buried.
"Exact words?"
She nodded.
Then the tablet spoke.
Someone older was there.
I leaned forward.
"Who?"
I couldn't see him clearly.
"Did you hear him?"
Yes.
"Did you recognize his voice?"
No.
Her fingers slowed.
But he knew Mom's name.
I felt the room shift.
"What did he say?"
Renata stared at the screen.
Then she typed.
He said: Elena always did make bad choices in men.
I already knew who talked like that.
I had heard Marcus Vale use the same kind of sentence nineteen years earlier.
The tablet spoke again.
Dad.
"Yes?"
Renata looked straight at me.
I don't know if you're safer than them.
I nodded because she deserved an answer that did not defend me.
"Neither do I."
Then my phone rang.
Detective Park.
I stepped into the hallway.
"What happened?"
"We found the person who manually shut down the cameras."
"Kessler?"
"His credential. Not necessarily him."
"Where is he?"
Park went quiet.
"That's the problem."
"What problem?"
"He disappeared three hours after your daughter was admitted."
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(To be continued)
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