Chapter 7 - The File Beneath the FloorI remembered the warehouse.
The damaged railing.
Daniel’s voice behind me.
The feeling of a hand near my shoulder.
For months, the memory had been buried beneath medication, pain, and doctors telling me trauma could distort perception.
Now it returned with terrible clarity.
Daniel had not called my name.
He had apologized.
“I’m sorry, Eduardo.”
Then I fell.
Marina drove while Detective Mills coordinated with marine patrol.
I stared at the city through the passenger window.
“There were files,” I said.
“What files?” Marina asked.
“Before the accident, I discovered discrepancies in fuel contracts connected to Valencia.”
“How much money?”
“More than eighty million dollars.”
“Who knew?”
“Daniel.”
Marina’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“And Patricia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are the records?”
“I copied them.”
“Where?”
I closed my eyes.
The memory came slowly.
The night before the warehouse inspection, I had returned home and hidden a flash drive.
Not in the office.
Not in the safe.
I had hidden it where no executive would ever look.
“Sofía’s old nursery.”
The room had been unused since she moved into the larger bedroom upstairs.
We returned to the mansion with police protection.
The broken kitchen door had been boarded shut.
I directed Marina toward a loose floor panel beneath the old rocking chair.
She lifted it.
A small metal box rested inside.
My hands shook as I opened it.
The flash drive was still there.
Marina inserted it into an offline laptop.
Dozens of spreadsheets appeared.
Shipping routes.
Fuel invoices.
Shell companies.
Payments authorized by Daniel.
Consulting fees sent to an account belonging to Patricia.
Marina scrolled faster.
“This is enough to destroy them.”
“No.”
I pointed toward a coded column.
“These are container numbers.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Detective Mills entered the room.
“We found the yacht.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned near Virginia Key.”
“And Sofía?”
“No one was aboard.”
The room tilted around me.
Mills continued quickly.
“We found fresh tire tracks near the service pier.”
“They transferred her to a vehicle.”
“Most likely.”
Marina opened another file.
A series of scanned letters appeared.
One carried the logo of a private clinic in Fort Lauderdale.
It contained my patient identification number.
The payments showed Patricia authorizing large transfers to a neurosurgeon named Dr. Malcolm Reeves.
Marina’s face changed.
“He consulted on your second surgery.”
“He recommended against it.”
“He also signed the report saying your prognosis was permanent.”
I looked at the transfers.
The first payment had been made two weeks before my accident.
The second had been made the morning I entered surgery.
The third had been made after the hospital files disappeared.
Detective Mills leaned closer.
“This connects the company fraud to your medical care.”
Another document appeared.
A transportation invoice.
It listed a private rehabilitation facility in the Everglades.
Sunhaven Neuro Recovery Center.
The invoice was dated that morning.
Passenger initials were listed at the bottom.
P.S.
S.S.
Patricia Santana.
Sofía Santana.
Marina grabbed her bag.
“They took Sofía to a medical facility.”
“Why?” I asked.
Detective Mills looked toward the screen.
“To make it appear that you were too unstable to care for her.”
My phone buzzed.
A video message arrived from Patricia.
She sat in a dim room.
Her makeup was smeared.
Her voice trembled.
“Eduardo, they have Sofía.”
“I made a mistake.”
“I thought Daniel only wanted the company.”
“I didn’t know he would do this.”
A shadow moved behind her.
May you like
Patricia looked over her shoulder.
Then the video ended.
