PART 29: THE FOURTH GUEST
Glass crunched somewhere in the darkness.
Ricardo stopped breathing loudly.
Even the sirens outside had gone silent.
A hand still gripped my arm.
I assumed it belonged to Isabella.
Then she whispered from across the room.
“Where are you?”
My blood turned cold.
The person holding me was someone else.
I tore myself free just as the emergency lights flickered on.
A shadow moved behind the curtains.
Tall.
Dressed in black.
Holding a suppressed pistol.
Ricardo raised his weapon.
The stranger fired first.
The bullet struck Ricardo’s shoulder and spun him onto the floor.
My mother lay nearby, bleeding but conscious.
The stranger stepped into the dim light.
Isabella gasped.
“No. You’re dead.”
The man removed his hood.
Gabriel.
But something was wrong.
The Gabriel we knew was outside with Julian.
This man had the same eyes.
The same face.
Only older.
A scar crossed his left cheek.
“My name isn’t Gabriel,” he said.
“My name is Samuel Keller.”
Dr. Keller’s son.
He revealed that his father had hidden him after Ernesto’s murder. For fifteen years, Samuel had followed the people responsible, using Gabriel’s identity whenever he needed access to our family.
I stared at him.
“Then who is outside?”
“The real Gabriel.”
Ricardo laughed weakly from the floor.
“You still don’t understand, do you?”
Samuel pointed the pistol at him.
“Be quiet.”
But Ricardo continued.
“There were four people at the hotel that night.”
The receipt had listed only three.
Ernesto.
Ricardo.
Isabella.
But someone else had entered through the service hallway.
Someone whose name never appeared in the records.
Samuel’s hand began to tremble.
Ricardo smiled through the pain.
“Tell them who poured the poison.”
My mother struggled to sit up.
“Don’t listen to him.”
Ricardo looked directly at Samuel.
“Your father didn’t simply change Ernesto’s death certificate. He supplied the poison.”
Samuel’s face collapsed.
“That’s a lie.”
“Ask Isabella.”
Everyone turned toward her.
She was crying silently.
“Isabella?” I whispered.
She lowered her head.
“Dr. Keller brought the poison, but he didn’t pour it.”
“Who did?”
Before she could answer, the front door burst open.
Julian and the real Gabriel entered with police officers behind them.
Weapons raised.
Ricardo dropped his gun.
Samuel slowly lowered his.
For one brief moment, I believed it was over.
Then Isabella reached beneath the table.
She pulled out a second recorder.
Pressed play.
And a woman’s voice filled the room.
My voice.
“If Ernesto refuses to sign,” the recording said, “put the poison in his champagne.”
Everyone turned toward me.
I stared at the recorder in horror.
“That isn’t possible.”
Isabella looked into my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But you were the fourth person at the hotel.”
