Chapter 12 - The Manhunt
By sunset, my face was everywhere.
Television.
News sites.
Social media.
Daniel Salgado, quiet Queens businessman, was being described as a suspected former organized-crime figure connected to the assault on his own daughter.
It was brilliant.
Sebastian had taken my past and wrapped it around Renata’s attack.
Now every move I made could be described as criminal retaliation.
Mateo drove us to an apartment owned by a friend who owed him no official favors.
Victor arrived an hour later.
“You’re famous again.”
“I preferred brake pads.”
He almost smiled.
Then he placed a folder on the table.
“Santiago’s phone records.”
“How?”
“Don’t ask.”
I looked at him.
“Then I’m not using them.”
Victor frowned.
“This isn’t nineteen years ago.”
“That’s exactly why I’m not using them.”
We needed evidence that could survive courtrooms.
Not just revenge.
Rafael contacted us through an attorney.
Santiago remained missing.
Maurice Beltran had also vanished.
That surprised me.
“Sebastian is collecting loose ends,” Victor said.
“Or protecting them.”
“From whom?”
“Us.”
Renata called from the hospital through a secure line.
Her speech was still impossible.
She typed while Dr. Reeves read her words.
She remembered something else from the attack.
Emmett had said, “Your mother should have stayed dead.”
Not “your mother should have minded her business.”
Stayed dead.
I read the sentence twice.
“What if Elena survived longer than Warren told us?”
Mateo looked at me.
“He said three minutes.”
“What if someone moved her after the crash?”
Victor’s expression changed.
Nathan had the original recording.
Warren had the original police report.
We compared them.
One detail had been altered.
The ambulance number.
According to the official report, Elena was transported by Unit 62.
But Unit 62 had never responded to the accident.
Unit 19 had.
That ambulance belonged to a private medical company.
Varela Emergency Services.
My skin went cold.
“Sebastian controlled the ambulance.”
Victor nodded.
We found the retired paramedic who had driven it.
His name was Howard Bell.
He lived in Pennsylvania.
When Victor called him, Bell hung up.
I called from another number.
“Elena Salgado.”
Silence.
Then a tired voice said, “I wondered when somebody would ask.”
“What happened that night?”
“She survived the crash.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“For how long?”
“Long enough.”
“Where did you take her?”
“We were ordered not to go to the hospital.”
Every person in the room froze.
“Where?”
“To a private clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“It was torn down years ago.”
“What happened there?”
Bell began breathing heavily.
“I never saw her leave.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Was she alive when you last saw her?”
“Yes.”
“How long after the crash?”
“Almost two hours.”
Two hours.
My wife had not died on that highway.
Someone had taken her alive.
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Bell whispered something I had never imagined hearing.
“But a woman matching her description was transferred out the next morning.”
“Transferred where?”
“I only saw the paperwork.”
“To where?”
Bell told me.
St. Catherine’s Psychiatric Institute.
The facility had closed sixteen years ago.
Victor was already searching.
Then his face changed.
“Daniel.”
He turned the laptop around.
A patient registry had survived in county archives.
One entry had no name.
Female.
Age thirty-one.
May you like
Admitted the morning after Elena’s crash.
Patient identification number 214.
