Chapter 10
A timestamp printed on a photograph is not proof of when the photograph was taken.
The image could have been altered. The man could have been someone who resembled my father. Even if it was Andrés, nothing in the photograph established where he was or whether he remained alive.
I understood every limitation.
I still stared at the image until the shape of his shoulders became unbearable.
He stood outside a white building beneath hard sunlight, thinner than I remembered, with gray hair reaching his collar. A newspaper kiosk appeared behind him. The visible masthead was French. A strip of blue paint along the curb suggested Morocco, but that was inference, not evidence.
The photograph’s original digital file contained no useful location data.
Leo had stolen the USB before Javier completed whatever he intended to do with it. Some folders were encrypted. Others had been deleted. The forensic unit warned that recovery might be partial.
The video from Unit 317 was clearer.
Javier’s face was visible.
The second person was deliberately framed outside the camera’s view except for his left hand and the lower part of a cane. The scar tissue extended from his wrist beneath his sleeve.
“Your brother-in-law knew the camera was running,” the investigator said.
“He looked at it twice.”
“Yes.”
“So he wanted the conversation recorded.”
“Possibly. Or the other person wanted it recorded. We cannot assume control of the camera from eye movement.”
“Javier asked when his debts would be cleared.”
“That supports a financial motive. It does not tell us who the other man is.”
The investigator enlarged the cane. A silver band circled its shaft, engraved with what appeared to be a bird or flame.
I had seen it before.
Not in person.
In the photograph from Asteria.
The civilian man at the edge of the group had leaned on a cane while boarding. We assumed he had injured his leg. After the explosion, the cane was never recovered.
His operational alias had been Farid.
He claimed to be a shipping clerk who documented illegal weapons transfers through commercial ports. My team was ordered to extract him from a vessel before a coordinated seizure.
The coordinates changed mid-operation.
We followed the authenticated order.
The boat carrying the second extraction team reached the original location and exploded.
Three men entered the water.
Only one body was recovered.
Farid vanished during the confusion.
Official conclusions blamed faulty intelligence, hostile interference, and poor visibility. The classified review found no conclusive evidence of an internal leak.
I never believed it.
I also never proved otherwise.
“Could this be the same man?” Lucía asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you identify him from a hand and a cane?”
“No.”
That answer hurt, but precision mattered.
By then, Javier had violated nothing the court could easily act upon. He had not contacted the children. He attended interviews through counsel. He claimed the burned man was a collector who wanted military memorabilia and that the video had been staged to impress another lender.
His debts were real.
His cruelty was real.
His explanation remained possible in fragments, if not as a whole.
Then his gym caught fire.
The blaze began shortly after three in the morning in a rear office at Fortaleza Sur. Firefighters contained it before it reached the apartments above the neighboring shops. No one was injured.
The office held Javier’s computers and paper accounts.
Initial investigators found evidence suggesting an accelerant, but laboratory confirmation would take time. Javier told police his enemies were trying to frame him.
Clara believed the fire was a warning.
“They destroyed what he had,” she said during a meeting at Lucía’s office. Her bruise had yellowed around the edges. “Now they’ll destroy him.”
“Has he contacted you?” I asked.
“Three times through other people.”
“That may violate the protective conditions you requested.”
“He never said his name. Friends told me he was sorry.”
“Did they threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did they pressure you to withdraw your statement?”
Clara looked away.
“One said families should not send each other to prison.”
“Your statement does not send him anywhere. It gives investigators evidence.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think because you finally stopped him, you are the only one who has been afraid.”
“No. I think fear deserves compassion, not authority.”
She stood and walked to the window.
“Javier said El Faro would kill him if the purple medal did not lead to the archive.”
“Did Javier say what the archive contained?”
“Shipping records. Names. Payments. He said powerful people had spent years making sure it remained lost.”
“Why would my father have it?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Why involve Michael?”
“Because Michael could access your papers and because Javier knew he would choose shame over confession.”
Michael sat across the room under Lucía’s supervision.
He did not defend himself.
Clara turned toward him.
“You helped Javier create the email account.”
Michael’s head lifted.
“No.”
“You were there.”
“I showed him how to set up an address. I did not know he would use Sara’s name.”
“You typed the recovery phone number.”
“It was his number.”
“You watched him upload her passport.”
“I thought it was for the family-support statement.”
Clara laughed bitterly.
“You always thought exactly enough to remain innocent in your own mind.”
Michael stood.
“I am cooperating.”
“Now,” she said. “After he hurt your son in public. Not when he waited outside the school. Not when he made you steal from your children.”
“I did not know about the storage unit.”
“You knew Javier wanted something from Sara.”
Michael’s face crumpled.
Lucía intervened before the argument became useless. She separated them and asked Clara to provide dates, locations, and any messages supporting what she remembered.
Clara opened her handbag.
“I have something better.”
She removed an envelope addressed in my father’s handwriting.
The seal was broken.
“Where did you get that?”
“Javier kept it beneath the floor safe at the gym. I took it two weeks ago.”
“Before the barbecue?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“I thought I could use it to make him leave me.”
“What changed?”
“He laughed.”
Her voice cracked.
“I told him I would expose everything. He laughed and said the letter was worthless without the second page.”
I unfolded the paper.
The first page was a message from my father to Eleanor.
It described a locker at Santa Justa railway station and warned her never to approach it alone.
The letter ended mid-sentence.
The second page was missing.
At the bottom, my father had written a date.
July 4.
The date of the barbecue.
May you like
Below it were six words:
SARA MUST SEE WHAT THE FAMILY DOES.
