Gaby read Alma's warning twice before locking her phone.
Marco had moved closer without seeming to realize it.
"What did she say?"
Gaby looked at him.
"You know who sent it?"
He did not answer.
Romina stared between them.
"Who is Alma?"
Marco's silence lasted half a second too long.
Romina's face hardened.
"You told me she quit."
"Stay out of this."
The sharpness in his voice surprised everyone.
Gaby felt the pieces shifting again.
Until that moment she had assumed Romina and Marco stood on one side of the truth while she stood on the other.
Now she was not so certain.
"Alma says she worked for you," Gaby said.
"She was fired."
Romina frowned. "You said she resigned."
Marco ignored her.
Gaby unlocked her phone and read Alma's messages more carefully.
Alma claimed her sister had also known Marco.
Her sister had died seven months earlier.
The child in the clinic photograph belonged to that sister.
Gaby's stomach tightened.
Marco had become involved after the mother's death, Alma wrote, supposedly because he wanted to help protect the child's interests.
But Alma believed Marco had done the opposite.
There had been money intended for the boy.
A settlement.
Marco had gained access to it.
Gaby looked at the photograph again.
The baby's soft cheek rested against Marco's jacket.
"What settlement?"
Marco rubbed both hands over his face.
"This is ridiculous."
"Then it should be easy to explain."
"It's complicated."
"That means it isn't ridiculous."
Romina pulled out a chair and sat down slowly.
Her wine had reached the edge of the tablecloth and begun dripping onto the floor.
Nobody cared.
"Marco," she said, "what settlement?"
He turned toward her.
"Not now."
Romina's expression sharpened. "You've been talking to me for months about money becoming available."
Marco said nothing.
Gaby noticed it.
So did Romina.
"What money?" Gaby asked.
Marco exhaled impatiently.
"You two are taking fragments and creating some criminal conspiracy."
"Nobody used the word criminal," Gaby said.
He froze.
Gaby's fear became steadier.
She had learned something important.
Marco was not frightened merely because his affair had been discovered.
He was frightened of documents.
Alma's documents.
Gaby walked to the drawer where she had hidden the grocery pad.
She took it out and added Alma's name.
Marco watched her.
"What are you doing?"
"Keeping track."
"Of what?"
"Things you don't want me remembering."
"Gaby, stop acting like this."
She looked up.
"Like what?"
He had no answer that would not make the situation worse.
Gaby's phone rang.
Her cousin Steven.
She had messaged him while copying Marco's records, asking whether he could come by that evening without explaining why.
Now she answered.
"Are you nearby?"
"About ten minutes away."
"Come now."
Steven heard something in her voice.
"Are you safe?"
Gaby looked at Marco.
"Yes."
"Do you want me to call anyone?"
"Not yet."
"I'll be there."
She ended the call.
Marco shook his head.
"You're involving your family?"
"You involved strangers in my finances."
"Nothing has happened to your finances."
Gaby opened the screenshot showing the private lender.
Marco's mouth closed.
Romina leaned forward.
"What is that?"
Gaby held up the screen.
"A lender."
Romina looked at Marco.
"You said the financing was through the business."
Marco's anger finally broke through his careful expression.
"Would both of you stop?"
The kitchen went silent.
Gaby had heard Marco angry many times.
At suppliers.
At traffic.
At employees who made mistakes.
At himself when something broke.
But rarely had she heard that tone directed at her.
She realized why.
For twenty-two years Marco had rarely needed anger to control a disagreement.
Gaby had usually chosen peace before conflict could grow.
She had interpreted that habit as maturity.
Now she wondered how often it had simply made his life easier.
"Leave," she said.
Marco stared at her.
"What?"
"Both of you. Leave my kitchen."
"This is my house too."
Gaby's pulse jumped, but her voice stayed level.
"Then you should have thought about that before discussing another house with her."
Romina stood.
"I'll go."
Marco turned on her. "Sit down."
"No."
Something had changed in Romina too.
She picked up her handbag.
"I don't know what you've done, Marco, but I'm not staying here while you explain things to me in pieces."
"You knew exactly what we were planning."
"I knew what you told me."
"And you were happy enough with that."
Romina flinched.
Gaby saw guilt there.
Romina was not innocent.
But guilt and full knowledge were not necessarily the same thing.
A horn sounded outside.
Steven.
Gaby collected her purse, the folder where she kept household documents, and her phone.
Marco stepped between her and the doorway.
"Where are you going?"
"To meet Alma."
"No."
The word came too quickly.
Too forcefully.
Gaby looked at him for several seconds.
"Move."
"She's unstable."
"Move, Marco."
"She stole information from my company."
"Then you can tell the police."
His eyes narrowed.
Gaby saw that he hated that answer.
Romina noticed too.
Marco lowered his voice.
"Gaby, listen to me. You don't understand the people you're dealing with."
Gaby slid the blue household folder under her arm.
"After this afternoon, I could say exactly the same thing about you."
She walked toward him.
For a moment she wondered whether he would actually refuse to move.
Then Steven knocked on the front door.
Marco stepped aside.
Gaby passed him.
At the doorway she turned.
"Do not remove anything from this house."
Marco laughed bitterly.
"You're giving me orders now?"
"No. I'm telling you what I'm documenting."
She left.
Steven was waiting beside his car.
He was in his late fifties, broad-shouldered, gray beginning to show at his temples. He had the unhurried manner of a man who believed most emergencies became easier once people stopped shouting.
He took one look at Gaby.
"What happened?"
"Marco has been seeing someone."
Steven's jaw tightened.
"That's not why you called me."
Gaby almost smiled.
"No."
She showed him Alma's messages.
He read them without interrupting.
When he finished, he looked toward the house.
Marco stood behind the front window.
"Get in," Steven said.
They drove across town.
Alma had chosen a bakery café near a busy intersection. The place was public, brightly lit, and crowded enough that Gaby understood immediately why Alma had selected it.
They found her at a corner table.
She was younger than Gaby expected, perhaps thirty-two or thirty-three. Her denim jacket looked worn at the elbows. Dark circles sat beneath her eyes.
Beside her was a gray stroller.
A baby slept inside.
Gaby stopped.
She recognized him.
The child from Marco's photograph.
Alma stood.
"Mrs. Hayes?"
"Gaby."
Alma nodded.
"I'm sorry."
"For which part?"
Alma's eyes filled briefly.
"All of it."
Gaby sat.
Steven took the chair beside her.
Alma remained standing long enough to check the stroller before returning to her seat.
"His name is Mateo," she said.
Gaby looked at the baby.
"Your sister's son?"
"Yes."
"Where is his father?"
Alma's expression tightened.
"That's one of the things Marco lied about."
She placed a thick folder on the table.
Gaby's hands went cold.
Alma explained carefully.
Her sister, Elena, had worked at Marco's business.
When Elena became pregnant, her circumstances had been difficult. Marco offered help. After Elena died, he became increasingly involved in paperwork concerning Mateo.
At first Alma had been grateful.
She had been grieving, caring for an infant, and trying to understand legal documents she had never expected to see.
Marco had seemed competent.
Generous.
Patient.
Then Alma discovered inconsistencies.
Documents listed Marco in a role she had never agreed to.
Money intended for Mateo had moved.
Records disappeared from the business office.
When Alma questioned Marco, he became defensive.
Soon afterward, she lost her job.
"How much money?" Steven asked.
Alma named a figure.
Gaby felt the breath leave her lungs.
It was enough to explain Marco's confidence about buying another house.
Perhaps enough to explain more.
"Why contact me?" Gaby asked.
Alma opened the folder.
"Because your name started appearing."
She slid several pages across the table.
Gaby saw her full legal name.
Gabriela Hayes.
Her home address.
A proposed loan.
She stared at the amount.
"No."
Steven took the document.
"You applied for this?"
"I've never seen it."
Alma pointed toward the bottom.
There was a signature.
Gaby's name.
But not Gaby's handwriting.
For several seconds she could hear nothing except the soft hiss of the café's espresso machine.
Steven studied the page.
"You're certain?"
Gaby almost resented the question.
Then she understood why he asked.
"Completely."
Her handwriting had a distinctive capital G. The signature on the page imitated its shape but missed the small backward curve she had made since childhood.
She looked through the other papers.
There were discussions of refinancing.
Property valuation.
A possible sale.
Her house.
The house she had spent eighteen years paying for.
Alma touched another page.
"I found messages about this."
Gaby read them.
Marco had told someone that Gaby would eventually cooperate.
Another message suggested that if she did not, there were other ways to obtain authorization.
Gaby stopped reading.
Steven's voice was quiet.
"We need copies of everything."
"I made three sets," Alma said.
She reached into her bag.
Gaby looked at her.
"You expected something to happen to the originals."
Alma did not answer directly.
Instead she glanced toward the window.
Her face changed.
Steven followed her gaze.
A dark sedan had pulled to the curb.
Marco's car.
Romina sat in the passenger seat.
Gaby felt something inside her settle.
Marco had followed them.
Alma immediately stood and placed one hand on Mateo's stroller.
Steven gathered the documents.
"Stay seated, Gaby."
"No."
Marco pushed through the café door.
His eyes went first to Alma.
Then the baby.
Then the folder in Steven's hands.
"Gaby," he said. "We're leaving."
Gaby placed her phone on the table.
She activated the recorder.
"No, Marco."
He stopped.
"This ends now."
Gaby looked at the forged signature bearing her name.
For the first time that day, she agreed with him.
Something was about to end.
It simply wasn't going to be what Marco expected.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: Marco Followed Gaby to the Café, but the Evidence on the Table Left Him With Nowhere Safe to Stand
At 3:17, a Forgotten Phone Revealed the Life Gaby’s Husband Had Been Hiding in Plain Sight
Part 2 of 35
