Chapter 4 - The Wife Before Me
I looked at Diego's face until it stopped belonging to the man I remembered.
The husband in my memories smiled differently.
Or maybe I had invented that after he died.
Grief polishes people.
It removes the sharp edges.
It turns ordinary mornings into precious memories and cruel silences into misunderstood sadness.
For two years, I had transformed Diego into a better man because dead people cannot defend themselves against love.
Now I stared at the photograph and saw something else.
Control.
His hand rested on Lucía's shoulder.
Not affectionately.
Possessively.
Like she belonged to him.
Like we all did.
“He wants me,” I said.
Detective Salgado took the phone.
“He wants control.”
“He said one wife comes home.”
“And you're not going anywhere.”
“If I don't, he could hurt her.”
“We don't negotiate by delivering victims to kidnappers.”
“She's in this because of me.”
“No.”
Salgado's voice became firm.
“She is in this because of him.”
I looked through the glass toward the interview room where Brenda was still sitting with her attorney.
“Then use Brenda.”
Salgado studied me.
“She can contact him.”
“She claims he contacts her.”
“She knows more than she's saying.”
“That I agree with.”
An hour later, Brenda finally admitted there was an emergency communication method.
A prepaid phone hidden in a locker at a bus station in Mexico City.
She claimed Diego had instructed her to check it if they ever lost direct contact.
Police retrieved it.
There was one message.
WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS.
Salgado wanted to use the phone to trace Diego.
But sending the wrong message could put Lucía in greater danger.
Brenda sat across from us inside a secured interview room.
This time I insisted on being present.
Her lawyer objected.
I didn't care.
“You knew he planned to kill me.”
Brenda looked down.
“Yes.”
“And you helped him.”
“I never agreed to that part.”
“You entered my home.”
“To find the insurance documents.”
“You played recordings of me.”
She looked up.
“That wasn't me.”
“Then who?”
“Ernesto.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“To create witnesses.”
Salgado leaned forward.
“Explain.”
Brenda exhaled.
“The plan changed after Mariana didn't spend the first insurance payout.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“Diego expected you to use the money.”
“Why?”
“Because spending it would make you look guilty.”
I almost laughed again.
“Guilty of what?”
“Insurance fraud.”
The pieces clicked together slowly.
If the truth about Diego's fake death emerged, I would be the widow who received eight million pesos.
The widow who benefited.
The widow whose signature appeared on suspicious documents.
The widow with fake psychiatric records.
The widow whose neighbors heard her screaming while she claimed to be at work.
They weren't only planning my death.
They were creating multiple endings.
If I died, Diego collected.
If I survived and discovered the truth, I could be blamed.
If I spoke too loudly, I could be called unstable.
Every path had been prepared.
Except one.
I had hidden beneath the bed.
“Why didn't he just take the first insurance money?”
I asked.
Brenda shook her head.
“The money was watched too closely. Diego couldn't touch it directly. The original plan was for you to transfer part of it into a company Ernesto controlled.”
“I never did.”
“You refused every investment Ernesto suggested.”
I remembered.
Restaurants.
Construction projects.
A logistics company.
Ernesto had spent months telling me I shouldn't let the insurance money “sit uselessly.”
I thought he was trying to help.
My refusal had saved me.
Brenda continued.
“Then Diego changed the plan.”
“The policy on my life.”
She nodded.
“The accident was supposed to happen next month.”
My skin went cold.
“What accident?”
Brenda looked at Salgado.
Then at me.
“Your brakes.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“They were going to fail on the road to Valle de Bravo.”
I remembered that I had a work conference scheduled there in three weeks.
Everyone in my office knew.
But so did Ernesto.
He had asked about my summer plans only two weeks earlier.
I looked at Salgado.
“My car.”
He immediately called an officer.
“Have forensics impound Mariana's vehicle. Nobody touches anything until the mechanical unit examines it.”
Brenda spoke softly.
“It may already be prepared.”
I stared at her.
“How can you sit there and say that?”
Her eyes filled with something that almost looked like shame.
“I was scared.”
“You were scared?”
“Yes.”
“You smiled at me under my bed.”
Her face tightened.
“Because Diego was listening.”
That silenced me.
Brenda looked toward the mirror.
“Do you think I wanted to crawl around your house every week? Do you think I wanted to do any of this?”
“You had a choice.”
“So did you.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
“What did you say?”
Her lawyer raised a hand.
But Brenda continued.
“You had a choice the first time Diego disappeared for three days.”
My heart pounded.
“You knew?”
“He was with me.”
The humiliation was almost physical.
She continued.
“He always tests women.”
“Tests?”
“He disappears. Lies. Comes back. Watches what you forgive.”
I felt sick.
“He calls it measuring the door.”
No one spoke.
“What does that mean?” Salgado asked.
Brenda looked at him.
“He says every person has a door they leave open for someone they love. He keeps pushing until he knows how wide it is.”
I sat down slowly.
“And mine?”
Brenda looked at me.
“He said yours never closed.”
That sentence hurt more than I wanted it to.
Because it was true.
I had forgiven the disappearances.
The unexplained charges.
The perfume.
The locked phone.
The sudden trips.
I had mistaken endurance for love.
And Diego had mistaken it for permission.
“Why are you helping us now?” I asked.
Brenda's eyes hardened.
“Because I realized I was next.”
She told us that three months earlier, she had found a life insurance application in Diego's laptop.
Her name was on it.
She was insured for fifteen million pesos.
The beneficiary was a company registered in Panama.
A company she eventually discovered belonged to Diego through a chain of false identities.
She confronted him.
He laughed.
Said it was “just paperwork.”
That was when she began secretly saving evidence.
“Where?”
Salgado asked.
Brenda hesitated.
Then she gave us the location of a storage unit in Tlalnepantla.
The unit was registered under a false name.
Inside, police found enough material to turn Diego's story into something far worse than any of us imagined.
Passports.
Six of them.
All with his face.
Different names.
Alejandro Cruz.
Gabriel Santos.
Diego Alvarez.
Tomás Figueroa.
Ricardo Mena.
Julián Ortega.
There were marriage certificates.
Bank records.
Insurance policies.
Photographs.
And files on women.
Dozens of pages on each.
Their families.
Jobs.
Assets.
Medical history.
Weaknesses.
One folder was labeled MARIANA.
I opened it with gloved hands.
There were photographs of me taken before I met Diego.
Leaving university.
Walking into my first job.
Eating lunch with friends.
I nearly dropped the folder.
“He knew me before we met.”
Salgado looked over my shoulder.
Our first meeting had happened at a café.
I spilled coffee.
He helped me clean it.
He joked that fate owed us a better introduction.
I had told that story at our wedding.
There had been no fate.
He had chosen me.
Inside the folder were notes written in Diego's handwriting.
Father deceased.
Mother living in Mérida.
No siblings.
Stable employment.
Owns inherited property in Naucalpan.
Emotionally loyal.
Limited close family nearby.
High tolerance for reconciliation.
My life reduced to vulnerabilities.
Then I found one sentence circled twice.
Ideal long-term candidate.
I closed the folder.
“I can't read this.”
Salgado took it.
Another officer approached.
“Detective.”
He was holding a smaller envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Lucía.
Recent.
Very recent.
She was outside a supermarket, unaware she was being watched.
On the back Diego had written:
SURVIVOR RISK.
There was also an address.
A farmhouse outside Atlixco.
Police teams mobilized immediately.
The house was two hours away.
No one knew whether Lucía was still there.
I was told to remain behind.
I refused.
Salgado refused harder.
“This is not a discussion.”
“She survived him before.”
“That doesn't make you responsible for rescuing her.”
“He wants me.”
“Exactly.”
In the end, I remained at the command center.
Those were the longest three hours of my life.
At 2:14 a.m., the tactical team reached the farmhouse.
At 2:21, they entered.
No gunfire.
No Diego.
They found Lucía alive in a locked bedroom.
When Detective Salgado finally brought her into the station near sunrise, I almost didn't recognize her from the photograph.
She looked older than forty-three.
Fear can age a person quickly.
A blanket covered her shoulders.
She stopped when she saw me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Lucía whispered, “You're Mariana.”
I nodded.
She began crying.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
She simply covered her face.
I walked toward her.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
The words confused me.
“Me?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
I looked at Salgado.
Lucía lowered her hands.
“He showed me your picture.”
My body went cold.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Six years ago.
Three years before Diego's supposed death.
“What did he say?”
Lucía's eyes searched mine.
“He said you were his first wife.”
I couldn't speak.
“That you died in an accident.”
Nothing made sense anymore.
“He was already married to me six years ago.”
Lucía shook her head.
“No.”
Her voice trembled.
“He didn't meet you nine years ago.”
I stared at her.
“He'd been following you much longer.”
The room felt very small.
Lucía explained that she had met the man she knew as Gabriel Santos thirteen years earlier.
They married quickly.
He was charming.
Patient.
Generous.
Then he became controlling.
He monitored her phone.
Her money.
Her friends.
When she tried to leave, he emptied their accounts and vanished.
Years later, she saw him by accident in Mexico City.
He was with another woman.
Me.
“I followed you,” Lucía confessed.
I remembered nothing.
“You looked happy.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I was afraid to approach you.”
“Why?”
“Because he found me first.”
Diego had confronted Lucía that night.
He told her that if she ever spoke to me, I would die.
Then he showed her photographs proving he knew where her mother lived.
Where her nephew attended school.
She remained silent.
For years.
Then three weeks earlier, Lucía received an envelope.
Inside was my photograph.
And a newspaper clipping about Diego Alvarez's death.
The message said:
THE WIDOW WILL JOIN THE OTHERS SOON.
Lucía had been trying to contact me when Diego found her.
“You were trying to warn me?”
She nodded.
“How?”
“I called your house.”
My heart stopped.
“The screams.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I called several times, but no one answered.”
Then she reached into the pocket of her borrowed coat.
Salgado immediately moved, but she slowly removed a small folded piece of paper.
“He left this in the room where he kept me.”
She handed it to the detective.
On it was a number.
A bank account.
And one name.
ERNESTO ALVAREZ.
Lucía looked at me.
“Your brother-in-law isn't helping Diego.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“He's not working for him.”
She swallowed.
“He's above him.”
Even Salgado looked surprised.
Lucía continued.
“I heard them arguing.”
“Who?”
“Diego and Ernesto.”
She leaned closer.
“Diego wanted to run after Brenda was arrested.”
My pulse quickened.
“Ernesto told him no.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Lucía closed her eyes, remembering.
Then she repeated the words.
“He said, ‘You don't decide when an identity dies. I do.’”
The station fell silent.
Detective Salgado immediately ordered officers to locate Ernesto.
But when police arrived at his house, he was gone.
His closets were empty.
His passport missing.
Security cameras showed him leaving hours earlier with two suitcases.
It appeared he had escaped.
Until an officer searched the garage.
There, beneath a loose section of flooring, they found a hidden room.
Inside were filing cabinets.
Computers.
Cash.
And photographs of men and women from across Mexico.
Some were marked ACTIVE.
Others CLOSED.
One photograph sat alone on the desk.
Mine.
Across my face, someone had drawn a red circle.
Underneath was a handwritten note.
FINAL CLEANUP — JULY 20.
Today's date.
Detective Salgado called me immediately.
“Mariana, listen carefully.”
I heard shouting behind him.
“What happened?”
“You need to leave the station.”
“What?”
“There's been a security breach.”
Before I could ask another question, every light in the building went out.
The hallway vanished into darkness.
Someone screamed.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Red.
Weak.
Unsteady.
An officer ran past us.
Then another.
Salgado's voice was still coming through my phone.
“Mariana?”
“I'm here.”
“Get into a locked room now.”
Lucía grabbed my arm.
At the far end of the hallway, a door slowly opened.
A man stepped inside.
Tall.
Dark jacket.
Bloodless expression.
For one impossible moment, the world stopped.
I knew that walk.
I knew those shoulders.
I knew the way he tilted his head when he saw me.
Diego.
He was inside the police station.
Alive.
Twenty meters away.
Lucía began trembling beside me.
Diego smiled.
Then he raised one finger to his lips.
Behind him, another man appeared.
Ernesto.
My phone slipped from my hand.
Because Lucía had been right.
Diego wasn't the man running the nightmare.
He was only one part of it.
May you like
And Ernesto looked at his supposedly dead brother, then at me, and calmly said the words that finally revealed why my house had been chosen from the beginning.
“It's time to finish what your father started, Mariana.”
