Chapter 36 #2
He leaned in close as it looked like the woman said something to her, and Emilita froze, apparently in a trance, slowly nodding in a completely unnatural way. When the woman released her hand, Emilita returned to her work as if nothing had happened while the woman left.
“We don’t have sound?” Abundio asked.
“No, sir,” the tech said. “You ordered video-only earlier this year when we upgraded them. You said you didn’t want people able to tap into audio and surveil the office that way.”
Abundio let out a roar and resisted the urge to hurl the tech’s laptop into one of the windows. “All right,” he growled. “Play it all again.”
Then he called Emilita back into the office and had her watch it. When it reached the point where the woman left, she leaned in, scowling, and stared at the video. “What on earth—I swear to you, this must be faked! I have no memory whatsoever of her leaving!”
Abundio looked to the security guy, who shook her head. “There’s no way it can be faked or AI. This is what happened.
Emilita emphatically shook her head, apparently on the verge of hysterics from her shrill tone. “I am telling you, that is not what happened!” She pointed at the computer. “It is impossible!”
Abundio considered himself a good judge of people and normally would not have believed anyone else saying that.
But Emilita’s body language, everything, matched her words.
He stood as tears ran down her cheeks while she continued shaking her head back and forth. “No! Sir, please, you have to believe me!”
He pulled her in for a hug. “Shh,” he said.
“I do believe you.” She broke down sobbing.
“Because I know what I see on that screen is someone who deliberately obscured their appearance in an unusual way. I don’t know how she did what she did, but she hypnotized you or something.
” He stared at the frame, frozen on the woman holding Emilita’s hand.
“Your face went blank and you froze when she shook your hand. I don’t know how she did it, but she did something to you. ”
She sobbed even harder, and he motioned for the computer tech, who stood off to the side observing all this, to take her out. “Get her some coffee or something in the break room. Please comfort her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You, stay,” he said to the security officer.
Once they were alone, Abundio dropped into the chair again and ran through the footage. He froze it on the woman reaching out and taking Emilita’s hand. “She did something to her,” he said. “I don’t know what, or how, but she did something to Emilita.”
“Are you…sure, sir?”
“You can put her through a lie detector test, if you want. But even if we were to torture her, her story would remain the same—which we’re not,” he quickly added when the guy looked horrified.
The man relaxed, visibly relieved.
Abundio sat back, pointing at the screen. “I need to do some research. But perhaps my nephew truly did stumble over something completely remarkable. Perhaps he wasn’t as mad as I believed him to be.”
“Sir?”
Abundio slowly swiveled the chair as he pondered his options.
“We have a strange woman without a name suddenly showing up first thing in the morning. She is not on the schedule. This same morning, the building’s entire security system malfunctions.
When the woman leaves, she pauses to speak with Emilita, and now Emilita’s memory is erased.
And this evening, Jacinta kills herself after telling the priest that she has something big to reveal. ”
He looked at the security tech—whose name he really needed to learn. “As if she were compelled to do so.” He focused on the security tech. “Do you know what so many pieces of coincidence and circumstantial evidence fitted together are called?”
The man shook his head.
“An enemy action,” Abundio said, standing. “Get printouts of her in several views. I want everyone in the lobby yesterday morning to be questioned.”
“Everyone, sir?”
“Workers,” Abundio amended as he headed for the door.
“Talk to everyone, show them her pictures. Find out what you can. And I want Jacinta’s work and personal laptops brought to me at the house.
” He stopped and turned. “I want a full DNA screen of everyone in this office, and I want you to swab every door handle, the elevator buttons—everything—to see if you can identify DNA of someone who isn’t an employee here. I want that done immediately.”
“Yes, sir.” He pulled out his phone to make a call.
Abundio went to the break room, where Emilita sat at one of the tables, a cup of hot tea in her trembling hands, while the computer tech sat next to her.
Abundio propped his hands on the table and leaned in. “Love, are you still single?” he gently said.
She sniffled as she looked up. “Sir?”
“Are you single? Dating?”
She shook her head. “There is my ex-husband, but I am not dating.”
“Can you still have children?”
Her brow deeply furrowed in confusion. “Sir?”
“Can you or not?”
“I-I…” Her jaw snapped closed. “I am 39 and my son is in university now.”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“I… I think so? I still get my periods.” Her cheeks deeply flushed. “Why?”
“I want to talk to you about a very lucrative IVF deal, my dear. One that will ensure you, your son, and the rest of your family are set for life. Are you perhaps interested?”
Understandably, she looked confused. “I don’t understand. You want me to… have a baby?”
“My baby, specifically,” he said. “I will have my attorney draw up a contract. I will pay for testing to see if you can get pregnant—everything about this at my expense, of course—and if you can have a baby, we will legally get married and engage in IVF. Is that something you’d be interested in?”
She stared at him, jaw agape. “I… I don’t know?”
“Would you perhaps be interested in discussing the terms to see what the financial benefit to yourself would be?”
She finally nodded.
He offered her what she hoped was a kind smile.
“If you hadn’t guessed, Jacinta and I had a legal arrangement,” he said.
“Yes, she wanted to be married to me, but it started as a business transaction, because I wish to have an heir. I am willing to offer you that same type of deal, without pretending to be my wife except for the legal marriage. If you decline, or cannot have children, I swear that there will be no repercussions—you will still keep your job here.”
She slowly nodded. “I would be willing to talk about it.”
“Excellent.” He turned to the security tech, who’d followed him. “I want the two of you to drive her home; one of you drive her car. Make sure she gets there safely. Then come to my home as soon as possible. Yes, I realize it’s late, but we have much to discuss.”
He offered his hand to Emilita, who finally took it. Despite the mug of tea, her hands were so, so cold. He leaned in and kissed her hand, meeting her gaze. “Whatever that woman is, I will get answers. You did not deserve for her to do what she did to you.”
“I-I don’t even know what she did?”
“Neither do I. But when I find her, we will get answers. I promise.”
Two days later, Abundio sat alone in the church, Armando standing at the front doors to keep anyone out.
It was just Abundio and the priest, whom he’d bribed to perform a brief funeral mass for Jacinta and their baby.
Abundio’s main argument was that his baby, at least, deserved a mass, and that he was convinced she was not in her right mind when she did it, a murder by proxy.
The price for a priest looking the other way wasn’t nearly as substantial as Abundio had believed it’d be.
He would have them cremated and interred in an urn that he’d keep on a shelf in his living room, next to the wedding picture and a framed copy of the ultrasound. And there they would stay until he avenged them.
His computer expert figured out that Jacinta had somehow hacked into his laptop and obtained the information Miranda and Manuel had gathered.
She had copied all the files to her computer, not even a couple of weeks after they learned she was pregnant.
That she’d begun her own serious research into it over a month earlier, and her search history, while she thought it was deleted, showed her investigations following the same path.
It was obvious to him that whatever this was had led someone to her.
When the mass ended, the priest left to summon the undertakers handling the cremation. Once the coffin was removed, Armando brought in Emilita.
Turned out one could get a package deal on having a funeral for a woman who technically committed suicide, and then also get married immediately to another woman who, despite being divorced, was given special dispensation to marry Abundio because her ex-husband was an admitted adulterer and he now, of course, was twice widowed.
Sure, he’d had to pay the ex-husband to swear that to the priest, but it was amazing how effective a generous bribe and thinly veiled threat proved.
From that moment on, Emilita would have 24/7 security. He wouldn’t require her to move in with him. In fact, he preferred she didn’t.
He wanted the ability to plan without her looking over his shoulder. Not to mention, he wanted her well isolated from his cartel dealings. She currently had no idea he was involved with it and wanted it kept that way.
There had to be a reason Miranda and then Jacinta both succumbed to the allure of the unknown, and he wanted Emilita to be kept fully insulated against it.
Meaning he would not have her in his home as anything other than an occasional guest.
He would also upgrade her housing and had given her a budget. She’d spend next week hunting for a new residence close to his, large enough for her son and other family to come visit.
His security team would assist her with purchasing a car, too, although she would rarely be driving from this point forward.
Unless it was with a security guard in the passenger seat.
The public story would be that she was being handsomely compensated to be a surrogate, and for now, the father wished to remain anonymous.
It wouldn’t be difficult for the staff to guess he was the father, but if they wanted to keep their jobs they’d keep their opinions to themselves.
As far as they were concerned, in light of Miranda’s absconding to parts unknown with a lover—as he’d set up evidence—and Jacinta’s tragic death, he wanted a loyal employee who already knew much about the daily operations to be elevated to the rank of COO.
And Emilita tentatively agreed to more than one child, depending on how this pregnancy went.
When a baby was born, then Abundio would announce he was the father and turn over full control of the business to Emilita, with the stipulation that she would run the business and raise their child—or children—to take it over when they came of age.
And when he died, she would inherit all his personal assets, including substantial bank accounts.
If after two years she could not get pregnant, she would still keep the house and car, as well as a handsome payout.
Although he suspected he would not live long past the birth of his first child with her.
Mostly because he planned to hunt down the bastards who’d ruined his life when they first killed Raul. A bastardized butterfly effect. It had cost him Manuel’s life, his daughter’s life—
His bride’s life.
He was already working on trying to identify and locate the man who’d killed Raul. His guess was that if he identified him, it would lead to the mystery woman.
Or vice-versa.
There were too many coincidences.
With Ray Dorland apparently missing and likely dead, Abundio suspected he’d been silenced—by the Russians or the other, unknown party. Perhaps even Mateo and Carl, he didn’t know.
Five days after Jacinta’s death, Abundio was at work in the office that had been Jacinta’s. He’d left everything as it was, except to move the framed picture to the windowsill behind the desk.
His security man paused in the doorway and knocked. “Sir?”
Abundio waved him in. “Close the door.”
He did and approached the desk, holding out a sheet of paper. “I found something unusual, sir.”
Abundio took the paper. It was a printout of transaction numbers, dollar amounts, times, and other info. “Where is this from?”
“The coffeeshop in the lobby. I paid one of the managers to get me reports of all transactions that occurred while the cameras malfunctioned. Many of them were cash, and they don’t have a security camera of their own. But the clerk on duty that morning does not remember anyone unusual paying cash.”
“That we know of,” Abundio muttered.
“Yes, sir. But I started researching credit card transactions, especially focusing on the ones from before the woman arrived in the office.”
“And?”
“I’ve been able to trace and eliminate all of the card holders except five, and two of them belong to local businesses not in the building.”
“What about the others?”
“They are corporate cards. One from a company based in Venezuela, and the holder appears to be a man who is a partner in one of the firms here in the building. Another is a Canadian business.”
“And the last?”
“It is an international shell company whose origins I am still attempting to trace, but I believe it’s an American corporation. The purchase was around thirty minutes before our best guess that Jacinta arrived in the building.”
Abundio sat back, triumph raging through him. “That one. I want you to get me every scrap of information you can about that company. I don’t care how much it costs or what methods you resort to. I want to know everything about them.”
“Yes, sir.” He left, and Abundio stared at the printout.
This felt right.
Finally.
And whatever it took, once he found that woman…
Oh, she would pay. He didn’t even give a shit who or what they were anymore, or if there were ways to monetize them. Because all he wanted now was vengeance.
And they would all pay.
Every last fucking one of them. No matter how long it took or if he died in the process.